Ratings for the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors sunk to its lowest numbers ever as President Donald Trump hosted the once-prestigious event from the renamed Washington, D.C. performing arts center, which he altered to include his name weeks after its taping.
The awards ceremony drew in just 3.01 million viewers as it broadcast on CBS and live streamed on Paramount+ on Tuesday, Dec. 23, according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day + big panel figures. As preliminary ratings suggested, the 2025 ceremony marked the lowest audience for the Kennedy Center Honors, and even sunk lower than the COVID-restricted 2021 program, which gathered 4.1 million total viewers, its lowest viewership at the time.
The ratings plummet reflects the outrage surrounding Trump’s renaming of the the Kennedy Center, formerly the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, to the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” a renaming that was announced by press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Dec. 18. The renaming came months after Trump took over as the venue’s chairman, which also drew substantial backlash, including from artists Issa Rae, Renée Fleming, Shonda Rhimes and Ben Folds, who resigned from their posts or canceled their events at the Kennedy Center.
The name change had not yet been announced when the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors was filmed on Dec. 7, though Trump’s involvement in the ceremony, of which he named himself the host, was likely enough of a detractor for some viewers. The ceremony, which has previously honored Meryl Streep, Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, Billy Joel and Tom Hanks, featured honorees including George Strait, KISS, Michael Crawford, Gloria Gaynor and Sylvester Stallone.
The decision to rename the Kennedy Center has drawn severe backlash across the board, including from members of the Kennedy family like Maria Shriver, Kerry Kennedy and Jack Schlossberg, as well as several performing arts groups and organizations who typically perform at the Kennedy Center. The performers and groups refusing to associate with the Kennedy Center include Chuck Redd, who cancelled his Christmas performance following news of the name change, Doug Varone and Dancers, jazz group The Cookers and Kristy Lee.
The Kennedy Center Honors have been broadcast on CBS since the ceremony’s debut in 1978. The Paramount-owned network’s deal to televise the event is up after this year’s ceremony, meaning that the rights for the event will be up for grabs by other networks and potentially streamers.
