How ABC Lost the Oscars to YouTube: ‘The Day Network TV Finally, Truly Died’ | Analysis

After hosting the Oscars for more than 50 years, ABC has lost one of the most prestigious events in the broadcasting year. In 2029, the Academy Awards trade their broadcast deal for a new streaming iteration on YouTube, an industry-shifting deal that runs through 2033.

The decision marks a decisive blow to the broadcast television business, far beyond the lost revenue to the network, which was $127 million for this year’s ceremony. 

It also underscores the continued migration of high-profile live events — once seen as the last bastion of prime linear TV content — to streaming. The Oscars are the most prestigious event on the entertainment industry calendar, and the top entertainment live event when measured by viewership despite yearly declines. So the symbolism of the program heading to YouTube isn’t lost on anyone.

“Network television has been the home of the Oscars for 70 years,” a former Disney executive told TheWrap. “Apart from sports, this is the day network TV finally, truly, really died. We don’t have to wait till 2029 for the coroner’s report.”

With Disney’s current $100 million broadcasting rights deal set to expire in 2028, the Academy began pondering its next move at the beginning of this year, with YouTube, NBCUniversal and Netflix, which holds the rights to the SAG Awards (now renamed the Actor Awards), emerging as the top suitors for the Oscars.

The Academy made its price clear when negotiations began in 2025 — which an insider familiar with the deal told TheWrap wasn’t higher than Disney’s current annual price — but Disney was not interested in shelling out that much money anymore, citing declining ratings. With that rejection, the Academy went out to market throughout the year, ultimately finding a new partner in the Google-owned streaming giant.

But as the Oscars prepare to drive off into a streaming-only sunset in four years — a distribution component with which other awards shows have been grappling with and starting to incorporate into their deals themselves — it was the Academy’s commitment to tradition that drove its telecast to YouTube.

ABC-Oscar relationship on ice 

The Academy’s loyalty to Disney waned in recent years as ABC attempted to push changes to revitalize the ceremony and boost viewership after ratings plummeted during the height of COVID, which saw the 2021 show fall to a dismal 10.4 million viewers as compared to 23.6 million viewers in 2020 and 29.6 million viewers in 2019.

To win back viewers and bring in a younger audience, which ABC successfully did with “Dancing With the Stars” this year, the network advocated for moving some categories off the broadcast in favor of performances and other live aspects, much like the Grammys. An individual with knowledge of network decision-making told TheWrap it became difficult to get mainstream audiences to tune into the ceremony surrounding such prestige films. There were also reports that ABC wanted to trim the three-hour target length of the broadcast (with virtually all shows coming in at closer to three-and-a-half hours). But the insider noted the length was less of an issue than the overall structure of the show.

The Academy was reluctant to embrace such changes, but still made some moves to drive viewership. In August 2018, following what was then the lowest-rated Oscar telecast in history, the Academy  announced plans for a new Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film category in August 2018; that idea drew so much criticism that it was tabled just 29 days later, and a simultaneous move to hand out several categories during the commercial breaks was killed before the show took place. 

In the aftermath of these proposed changes that made the Academy look bad, AMPAS chose not to trim but to add two new categories, casting this year and stunts for 2028. A person familiar with the thinking described this as a signal to ABC that the Academy wasn’t interested in cutting categories anymore.

Coming into the streaming age

Another attempt to bring in a bigger and younger audience was a livestream with Disney-owned Hulu, which the Oscars unveiled for its 2025 show and ABC promoted heavily. The livestream had several technological difficulties, but broadcasting on both ABC and Hulu did boost Oscars ratings to its highest viewership in five years with 19.7 million viewers.

With Disney’s contract with the Academy not including a livestream component, the insider said it’s too soon to know whether the Oscars will stream on Hulu in addition to the ABC broadcast for its remaining three years. The added Hulu livestream component was on the table in early negotiations, per the insider.

While the ratings bounce is promising, nearly 20 million viewers is six times less than the viewership seen by the Super Bowl, which continues to reach new highs with a whopping 127.7 million viewers for the 2025 matchup. And in a post-streaming era, the barriers for any non-sports event — even the highest-rated one on TV — to achieve consistent viewership growth amid cord-cutting and linear decline might prove more of an uphill battle than it was worth for ABC.

Losing the Oscars doesn’t make ABC bereft of live programming — the network still has the rights to dozens of live sports (like the NBA, the NFL and the Super Bowl in 2027 and 2031) as well as Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Grammys starting in 2027.

Letting go of the Oscars also proved easier for Disney as Bob Iger gears up to pass the torch to a new CEO at the end of next year. Iger’s time at Disney has most always included the Oscars, with the show first broadcasting on ABC in 1976, two years after Iger first took his post. As he exits in 2026, the company’s loyalty to the show is leaving with him, the former Disney executive noted.

Ultimately, it was a cost-benefit analysis for ABC, with the price tag for the show not accounting for declining viewership in a tumultuous linear TV landscape. The Academy’s latest financial report cites its revenue from “Academy Awards and related activities” at $150.5 million though it’s unclear how much was derived from ABC, Buena Vista’s international rights and what came in from other sources. 

YouTube grows as a rival

No matter how Hollywood is feeling about this changeup, YouTube is celebrating. In a blog post announcing the partnership, YouTube called the Academy Awards “the pinnacle for lovers of film, artistry and storytelling.”

“Partnering with The Academy will inspire a new generation of creativity and film lovers while staying true to the Oscars’ storied legacy,” YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said in the post. 

For YouTube, buying the Oscars makes sense. The company can spotlight its creators directly to the audience it wants to impress most — Hollywood. 

And we’re talking about a company that definitely has the funds to pick up a struggling awards show. In 2024, YouTube made a record-breaking $36 billion from ad revenue alone. 

Also, this new deal from YouTube is coming months after the company hired the perfect guy to oversee the Oscars. In May, Justin Connolly left the Walt Disney Corporation after 25 years to accept a position at YouTube. In this role, Connolly oversees YouTube’s media and sports operations (he was previously President of Disney Platform Distribution). Connolly’s hiring was among one of the messiest media stories of the year, resulting in a lawsuit from Disney that was filed as an attempt to block the hiring. The lawsuit was settled in late October.

“Don’t underestimate the importance of the hatred and resentment between Justin Connolly, who left Disney for YouTube (and the accompanying lawsuits), and Iger and his team,” a former Disney executive told TheWrap. “The feud continues.”

Casey Loving, Tess Patton and Steve Pond contributed to this report.

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