diff --git a/ox/web/impawards.py b/ox/web/impawards.py
index f11ca12..868e784 100644
--- a/ox/web/impawards.py
+++ b/ox/web/impawards.py
@@ -3,11 +3,19 @@
 from __future__ import print_function
 import re
 
-from ox.cache import read_url
+import ox.cache
 from ox.html import strip_tags
 from ox.text import find_re
 
 
+def read_url(url, timeout=ox.cache.DEFAULT_TIMEOUT):
+    data = ox.cache.read_url(url, timeout=timeout)
+    try:
+        data = data.decode('utf-8')
+    except UnicodeDecodeError:
+        data = data.decode('latin-1')
+    return data
+
 def get_data(id):
     '''
     >>> str(get_data('1991/silence_of_the_lambs')['imdbId'])
@@ -22,7 +30,7 @@ def get_data(id):
     data = {
         'url': get_url(id)
     }
-    html = read_url(data['url'], unicode=True)
+    html = read_url(data['url'])
     data['imdbId'] = find_re(html, 'imdb.com/title/tt(\d{7})')
     if not data['imdbId']:
         data['imdbId'] = _id_map.get(id, '')
@@ -37,11 +45,11 @@ def get_data(id):
     for result in results:
         result = result.replace('_xlg.html', '.html')
         url = 'http://www.impawards.com/%s/%s' % (data['year'], result)
-        html = read_url(url, unicode=True)
+        html = read_url(url)
         result = find_re(html, '<a href = (\w*?_xlg.html)')
         if result:
             url = 'http://www.impawards.com/%s/%s' % (data['year'], result)
-            html = read_url(url, unicode=True)
+            html = read_url(url)
             poster = 'http://www.impawards.com/%s/%s' % (data['year'], find_re(html, '<img SRC="(.*?)"'))
         else:
             poster = 'http://www.impawards.com/%s/%s' % (data['year'], find_re(html, '<img src="(posters.*?)"'))
@@ -63,14 +71,14 @@ def get_id(url):
 def get_ids(page=None):
     ids = []
     if page:
-        html = read_url('http://www.impawards.com/archives/page%s.html' % page, timeout=-1, unicode=True)
+        html = read_url('http://www.impawards.com/archives/page%s.html' % page, timeout=-1)
         results = re.compile('<a href = \.\./(.*?)>', re.DOTALL).findall(html)
         for result in results:
             url = 'http://impawards.com/%s' % result
             ids.append(get_id(url))
         return set(ids)
     # get all
-    html = read_url('http://www.impawards.com/archives/latest.html', timeout=60*60, unicode=True)
+    html = read_url('http://www.impawards.com/archives/latest.html', timeout=60*60)
     pages = int(find_re(html, '<a href= page(.*?).html>')) + 1
     for page in range(pages, 0, -1):
         for id in get_ids(page):
@@ -81,7 +89,7 @@ def get_ids(page=None):
 
 def get_url(id):
     url = u"http://www.impawards.com/%s.html" % id
-    html = read_url(url, unicode=True)
+    html = read_url(url)
     if find_re(html, "No Movie Posters on This Page"):
         url = u"http://www.impawards.com/%s_ver1.html" % id
     return url