Hollywood’s biggest night drew its smallest audience in four years Sunday, as viewership for the 98th Academy Awards fell to 17.9 million, a 9% decline from last year’s post-pandemic high, according to Nielsen data released Tuesday.
The drop snapped a four-year streak of rising viewership for the Oscars and marked the smallest audience for the telecast since 2022, when 16.68 million people watched. Last year’s ceremony, which crowned Sean Baker’s “Anora” as Best Picture, had drawn 19.69 million viewers.
The figures cover combined viewing on ABC and its streaming partner Hulu, both of which are owned by Walt Disney Co.
The ceremony itself drew largely positive reviews. Comedian Conan O’Brien returned as host for a second consecutive year, and political thriller “One Battle After Another,” directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, took home six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” — a vampire film examining race in America — won four awards, including Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan and Best Original Screenplay for Coogler. The film had set a record with 16 nominations.
Among adults 18 to 49, the key demographic for advertisers, the broadcast drew a 3.92 rating, a 14% decline from the 4.54 rating recorded in 2025.
Despite the TV audience decline, social media impressions for the telecast surged 42% over 2025 to more than 184 million, with Academy social platforms logging over 129 million video views throughout the night, according to Talkwalker’s Social Content Ratings.
The Oscars also faced unexpected competition Sunday night from the World Baseball Classic, whose semifinal between the United States and the Dominican Republic drew 7.37 million viewers on FS1 and Fox Deportes — the largest audience ever for a WBC game in the United States. Organizers had already moved the ceremony to a later date this year to avoid a conflict with the Winter Olympics, only to run into the baseball tournament instead.
The decline was not isolated to the Oscars. The Grammy Awards dropped to 14.4 million viewers this year, down from nearly 17 million two years ago, while the Golden Globes drew just 8.7 million viewers, according to the New York Times. It marked the first time in several years that all three major awards shows lost viewers in the same cycle.
The Academy Awards once routinely attracted 40 million or more viewers, but viewership cratered to 10.4 million in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic before beginning a gradual recovery. Despite Sunday’s setback, the broadcast remained the No. 1 primetime entertainment telecast of the 2025-2026 season, according to Disney.
The long-term future of the Oscars on traditional television is already settled. ABC’s half-century partnership with the Academy will end after 2028, with the ceremony set to stream exclusively on YouTube beginning with the 101st Oscars in 2029.
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