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Update: The 2025 Oscars scored the biggest audience the awards show has seen in five years, according to final live-plus-same-day viewing numbers from Nielsen, which bring the show’s viewership to 19.69 million across ABC and Hulu.
While initial figures for the 97th annual Academy Awards first tallied 18.07 million viewers — a 7% downtick from last year — updated viewing figures from Nielsen, which include viewing from digital devices on mobile, PCs and tablets, added 1.645 million viewers, bringing this year’s total audience to 19.69 million viewers. The 19.69 million viewers marks a 1% increase from last year’s ceremony, which scored 19.5 million viewers.
The updated figures also brought the show’s rating in the key broadcast demo among adults 18-49 to a 4.54 rating — up 19% from last year’s rating of 3.82. In the 18-34 demo, the Oscars scored a 3.05 rating — up 28% from last year — ranking as the show’s biggest audience in the younger demo in six years since the 2019 show.
Original story: The 2025 Oscars brought in an impressive audience, though not as big as last year.
The 97th annual Academy Awards scored 18.07 million viewers across ABC and Hulu, according to Nielsen figures. The show began airing on ABC at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT, and was live-streamed on Hulu, though not Disney+ with Hulu.
That’s down 7% from the 19.5 million total viewers brought in by the 2024 Oscars, and builds on the year-over-year viewership growth seen by the show. In 2023, the show scored 18.8 million viewers, while the 2022 show brought in 16.7 million viewers.
The Conan O’Brien-hosted show also delivered a 3.92 rating in the key broadcast demo among adults 18-49 — up 3% from last year’s rating of 3.92. The Oscars brought in the show’s highest rating in two years in the 18-49 demo, as well as its highest rating in five years among adults 18-34 as it scored a 3.17 rating in the 18-34 demo.
Among both total viewers and in the 18-49 demo, the Oscars stands as the No. 1 primetime entertainment telecast for the 2024-2025 season.
On social media, the Oscars logged 104.2 million total social interactions, ranking as the No. 1 most social TV program this season, exceeding social performance for the Grammys, which logged 102.2 million interactions, and the Super Bowl, which logged 62.4 million interactions. Notably, the Academy’s ASL livestream has scored 1.4 million viewers.
For reference, this year’s Grammys scored 15.4 million viewers — down over 8% from the 2024 show — while the 2025 Golden Globes brought in 10.1 million viewers.
The 2025 Oscars marks the second year that the ceremony began at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT, rather than its previous 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT start time, which Oscars showrunner and EP Raj Kapoor told TheWrap last year would be be “beneficial” given audience’s shifting lifestyles. The show was scheduled to wrap up by 10:30 p.m. ET/7:30 p.m. PT, though, as usual, it ran long.
After “Anora” gained some momentum throughout awards season, the Mikey Madison-led movie was the winningest film of the night, with Sean Baker winning four Oscars — matching a record held by Walt Disney. In a surprise turn of events, Madison won the Academy Award for best actress over frontrunner Demi Moore, before “Anora” took home the prestigious best picture award. The final award of the night was presented by Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, serving as an on-stage “When Harry Met Sally” reunion.
As expected, Adrien Brody took home the Oscar for best actor for his performance in “The Brutalist,” while Kieran Culkin took home the supporting actor award for “A Real Pain” and Zoe Saldaña took home the Academy Award for best supporting actress for “Emilia Pérez.”
Editor’s note: This post from March 3 has been updated to reflect mobile and PC ratings obtained the following day (Tuesday, March 4), which brought viewership up 8.97% from what was initially prognosticated the day after the 97th Academy Awards telecast.
