The 2026 Academy Awards were watched by 17.9 million people across broadcast and Hulu, ABC reported on Monday, March 16. It’s a drop of roughly 9 percent from last year’s broadcast, which had 19.69 million viewers, and is the lowest total for the show since 2022 when it had just 16.6 million viewers.
This year, like last, was hosted by Conan O’Brien, and he once again delivered a lively and funny show that wrapped up just a little over the three hour mark. But the Oscars were also later than usual because of the Olympics, so fatigue no doubt was starting to set in. After last year’s ceremony saw a mild uptick in viewers and represented a five-year high, there was hope this show would continue that trend, even though it’s still well below the 2020 ceremony that averaged 23.6 million viewers, which — at the time — was an all-time low for the Oscars. This also was the second year in a row that Disney made the show available live on ABC and via Hulu, which should’ve helped the viewership.
The Oscars weren’t the only awards show that saw a dip this year in viewership, as the Golden Globes and Grammys were also down, each about 6 percent. It was still the No. 1 primetime entertainment telecast of the year (not sports), and social impressions were up about 42 percent, but it’s hard to put too much of a positive spin on this.
“One Battle After Another” took home the top prize of Best Picture, with six Oscars in all, while fellow Warner Bros. title “Sinners” was the other big winner and won four Oscars. Paul Thomas Anderson finally won his Oscar after decades of being shut out, Ryan Coogler won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, Michael B. Jordan had a major win for Best Actor for “Sinners,” and “Sinners” also had the first-ever woman to win in the Best Cinematography category in the show’s 98-year history. It also doesn’t hurt that mega hit “Golden” from “KPop Demon Hunters” was performed live and also wound up winning the Oscar for Best Original Song. Find all the winners here.
ABC will try and wring as much out of the Oscars as it can both this year and next as, starting in 2029, after the 100th Oscars, YouTube will air the Oscars up through 2033 after decades on ABC. O’Brien poked fun at the idea of it streaming on YouTube by playing a pair of pop-up ads featuring Jane Lynch. YouTube is increasingly where the eyeballs are, as the video site is now considered the world’s largest media company. We’ll see who the host is of the Oscars come 2029.
Conan closed the ceremony with a parody moment from “One Battle After Another,” in which we see a placard that says “Oscar host for life” with O’Brien’s name replaced with the same placard but for Mr. Beast.
