Grammys and Golden Globes Also Fall, Marking a Sweeping Decline Across All Three Major Awards Shows

According to Nielsen, the Academy Awards drew 17.9 million viewers on Sunday night, a 9 percent decline from last year's telecast — snapping a four-year streak of growth.

오스카 시청자 수 9% 급감…2021년 이후 첫 하락세

올해 오스카 시청자 수 1,790만 명으로 9% 감소하며 4년 만에 하락 전환. 그래미·골든글로브까지 3대 시상식이 동반 부진을 기록하며 지상파 시상식 방송의 구조적 쇠퇴가 본격화되

K-EnterTech HubJung Han

With the Grammys and Golden Globes already having posted drops earlier this season, this marks the first time in years that all three major awards shows have fallen together, signaling a deepening structural shift in how audiences engage with Hollywood's biggest night.

Strong Reviews, Shrinking Audience

The telecast itself was well received. Host Conan O'Brien's return to the stage earned largely positive notices, with critics praising his sharp wit and relaxed command of the room. "One Battle After Another" took home Best Picture, while box office hit "Sinners" was the night's biggest winner, claiming four Oscars including Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan — his first Academy Award. The fact that viewership declined despite an absence of major controversy suggests the drop reflects something broader than the quality of any single ceremony.

Dodging the Olympics, Running Into the WBC

Oscars organizers had deliberately pushed the ceremony to a later date this year to avoid a scheduling conflict with the Winter Olympics. But a different sporting event moved in to fill the void. The World Baseball Classic — a tournament held every few years that is rapidly becoming baseball's answer to the World Cup — staged a high-stakes semifinal between the United States and the Dominican Republic on the same night. Airing on Fox Sports 1 and the Spanish-language Fox Deportes, the game drew 7.4 million viewers, a striking number for cable, fueled in large part by intense interest from Hispanic communities across the country.

"Just Avoid the Super Bowl" — The Oscars' Diminished Grip

A decade or two ago, when the Oscars reliably attracted 30 to 40 million viewers, no media company would dare program a major event opposite the show. The night was, in effect, sacred ground. That is no longer the case. Today, the Super Bowl stands alone as the one event the industry still takes pains to avoid. The fact that a WBC semifinal could pull 7.4 million viewers on cable — directly competing with the Oscars — illustrates precisely how much has changed.

The broader awards season scorecard makes the trend hard to ignore. The Grammys fell to 14.4 million viewers this year, down from nearly 17 million just two years ago. The Golden Globes drew only 8.7 million. Once commanding fixtures of the American television calendar, all three shows are now grappling with an audience that has quietly moved on.

The ABC Era Ends — YouTube Awaits in 2029

Paradoxically, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences may have less reason to panic than it once would have. Its half-century partnership with ABC comes to a close after 2028, and beginning in 2029, the Oscars will move to YouTube as an exclusive streaming event. The traditional broadcast ratings game, in other words, is almost over.

The shift to YouTube represents a strategic bet that the Oscars can reach a younger, more global audience on a platform where prestige and virality can coexist. Whether YouTube's global reach can compensate for the loss of linear television's mass audience — and how viewership will even be measured in that new environment — remains an open question.

Nielsen's figures for Sunday's telecast include viewers who watched both on ABC and via streaming on Hulu.