Just under 18.1 million people tuned into ABC‘s telecast of the 97th Academy Awards on Sunday, marking a 7% decrease from the year before.
That total, which comes from a combination of Nielsen’s measurement of linear viewers on ABC plus livestreams on Hulu, indicates the ceremony’s first viewership drop in four years. In 2021, the first ceremony after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic saw an all-time low of 10.4 million viewers, but Hollywood’s biggest night saw consecutive growth for three years after that, hitting 16.6 million viewers in 2022, 18.8 million in 2023 and 19.5 million in 2024.
Still, 18.1 million was enough to make the Oscars the most-watched and primetime entertainment (meaning non-sports and non-news) telecast of the 2024-2025 TV season thus far. It also had the highest rating among adults age 18-49 this season with a 3.92, up 3% from last year. And when isolated to adults 18-34, it was the highest-rated Oscars in five years with a 3.17.
It should also be noted that the Hulu livestream was interrupted by technical difficulties. Less than half an hour into the ceremony, upwards of 34,000 users reported problems accessing the streamer on Downdetector. At 5:48 p.m., almost two hours in, the X account for Hulu Support posted that service had been restored for affected users, but issues were reported again towards the end of the ceremony, just before the announcement of the best picture winner. Because the telecast was scheduled to conclude 7:32 p.m. but ran long, some users lost access to the livestream early. It can be assumed that the overall viewership total would have been at least slightly higher if not for these technical errors; at the same time, this is the first year that Disney has simulcast the Oscars on Hulu, so streaming numbers do not factor into previous years’s totals.
This year’s Oscars were hosted by first-timer Conan O’Brien, who received positive reviews for his appearance on the Dolby stage. “Anora” was the biggest winner of the night, being named best picture in addition to Mikey Madison’s best actress win and Sean Baker’s wins for best director, editing and original screenplay. See the full winners list here.
Directly after the Oscars, ABC aired a half-hour preview of its eighth season of “American Idol.” Lead-in from the awards show brought the singing competition series to 5.9 million viewers — its biggest season launch in three years.
From Variety US