Oscars Led an Overall Decline in Awards Season Ratings — With One Exception

Sunday’s Oscars closed out awards season on a ratings downtick, joining declines across the board for virtually every other major ceremony.

The drop marked a reversal of last year’s Academy Awards, which reached nearly 20 million viewers and brought in the biggest audience in five years as “Anora” took home Best Picture. The 2026 show saw the Oscars shed 9% of its audience as it hit 17.86 million viewers across ABC and Hulu, despite the fact that fan-favorite films like “Sinners” and “KPop Demon Hunters” were nominated (and eventually won). The 98th Academy Awards dipped to its lowest viewership since 2022, which brought in 16.7 million viewers as the Oscars rebounded from its 2020 record, and is about half the size of the audience a decade ago.

Many noted that the extreme lateness of this year’s Oscars may have caused fatigue, and thus less interest, in this year’s telecast. It aired in mid-March compared to last year’s telecast on March 2, but even last year’s ceremony was considered late in the calendar in contrast to the show’s traditional late February slot.

The Oscars have company with its fall in viewership, with the Golden Globes dipping 7% from last year to 8.66 million viewers and ending its two years of consecutive growth, while the Grammys saw a 6.4% decrease to 14.41 million viewers across CBS and Paramount+, down two years in a row. It’s a mirror of last year’s awards ratings, which saw every show grow, with the exception of the Grammys.

This year’s awards shows faced difficult comparisons because they didn’t benefit from the boost in attention a year ago in the wake of the Los Angeles wildfires in early 2025, with the Grammys airing just weeks after the tragedy, and every show paying some sort of tribute to those affected. The overall declines speak to the tricky task of keeping an audience’s attention through long awards ceremonies, which often stretch past the three-hour mark.

Bucking the trend was the 2025 Emmys, which occupy an awkward placement but will be counted in the 2026 awards season for this story’s purposes. In September, the Emmys saw its audience grow 8% to reach its most-watched ceremony since 2021 with 7.42 million viewers, continuing to rebound after it hit a record low of 4.3 million viewers for its strike-delayed show in January 2024. With another Emmys just six months later in September 2024 — which notably grew to reach 6.87 million viewers — the year break before the September 2025 show might’ve given viewers a moment to breathe and enjoy TV’s biggest night again.

Some smaller awards ceremonies took the baton from the Emmys, and that momentum continued when the Critics Choice Awards kicked off the bulk of awards season in January as the show more than doubled its linear audience to reach 726,000 viewers across E! And USA Network. That growth, however, can easily be attributed to the expansion of the show’s airing from just E! to include its fellow Versant-owned network.

Next up was the Actor Awards, which Netflix did not report specific viewing numbers for, nor did they show up on streamer’s top 10 TV list for the week of their airing, meaning that we’ll have to wait for the semi-annual transparency report to see how they stacked up against last year.

While the major awards shows have adjusted to an established streaming arm in addition to their linear homes, the question is no longer how to meet viewers where they’re at, but instead to entice them, with the Oscars producers teasing a “page turning” in a press conference as the ceremony nears its 100th anniversary in 2028.

There’s change afoot for that new chapter, as the Oscars gears up for the move to YouTube in 2029. And the Oscars won’t be the only show entering a new era soon, with the Grammys transitioning over to Disney from CBS next year.

CBS premiere week thrives

The return of the majority of CBS’ slate for its mid-season premiere week in late February saw the Paramount-owned network score the top three most-watched broadcast series, according to multiplatform live-plus-seven-day figures from Nielsen. Among those top three were “Marshals,” which led all broadcast series with 20.6 million viewers for the week, with “Tracker” and “Survivor” following behind in second and third place, respectively.

Likewise, CBS was home to the top four new series, with “CIA,” “Sheriff Country” and “Blue Bloods” spinoff “Boston Blue” trailing behind “Marshals.”

World Baseball Classic grows

The World Baseball Classic has brought in solid viewership for Fox, with 3.17 million viewers tuning in to the four Team USA WBC Pool play games across Fox, FS1 and Fox Deportes, marking the team’s best showing and up 183% over the 2023 four-game average viewership for USA team viewership.

“The Pitt” soars

Well into its second season, “The Pitt” scored its highest rank on Nielsen’s top streaming lists as it notched 1.04 billion viewing minutes, coming in as the No. 2 streaming show during the week of Feb. 9, which aligns with the release of its sixth episode.

ICYMI

• “One Piece” scored a notable Season 2 debut, landing as the week’s most-watched Netflix TV series with 16.8 million views in its opening weekend, though shedding some viewers from last season.
• The Season 2 drop of “Cross” on Prime Video tallied 613 million minutes during the week of Feb. 9.
• Bill Lawrence’s new comedy “Rooster” debuted as HBO’s most-watched comedy premiere in the U.S. in over 10 years.
• “CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil” dropped below 4 million viewers months after the show’s rocky relaunch.

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