The ratings for the 2026 Academy Awards are in, and the viewership decreased from last year’s live broadcast, making this year’s event the least-watched Oscars telecast since 2022.
The 2026 Oscars took place live from Los Angeles’s Dolby Theatre on Sunday, March 15. The event was live on ABC and Hulu, and 17.86 million viewers tuned in, according to Disney (per Variety). It’s a 9% decrease from the 2025 Oscars audience, which had 19.7 million viewers, a five-year high for the Academy Awards.
The event had an average 3.92 rating in the adults 18-49 demo, down from 4.54 in 2025, but up from 3.82 in 2024. While the audience and ratings were down, the 2026 Oscars had the highest ratings of primetime entertainment telecasts for the 2025-2026 season, Disney says. The ratings come from Nielsen’s big data plus panel ratings. Viewership was also down for the Golden Globes and Grammys this season.
There was, however, an increase in social media engagement about the awards show. ABC says that social media impressions were up +42.4% (184,314,3702) and that the Academy’s following on social platforms increased to 21.6 million vs. 19.7 million in 2025. There were more than 129 million video views on Sunday night.
The Oscars will air on ABC and Hulu for two more years before the Academy’s YouTube partnership begins in 2029.
The 98th annual Academy Awards were hosted by Conan O’Brien. Walt Disney Television’s Rob Mills told Variety that O’Brien can host the Oscars again if he wants to.
One Battle After Another and Sinners were the big winners of the night, with the former winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and the inaugural Best Casting award, and the latter taking home Best Original Score, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography (Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman to ever win this category).
Sinners was a major box office hit, grossing over $369 million worldwide ($279.9M domestic) with a $90-100 million budget. It also broke the record for most Oscar nominations in history by two. Three films — All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land — tied the previous record (14), and then Sinners set a new record with 16 nominations. Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) still hold the record for most Oscars won in a single night (11).
See the full list of 2026 Oscars winners here.
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Originally published on tvinsider.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.
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