The Academy Awards, as soon as tv’s most glamorous evening, have been hemorrhaging viewers for many years. On Wednesday, the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences introduced a tourniquet: a multiyear deal granting YouTube unique world streaming rights to the Oscars from 2029 by way of 2033, ending a partnership with ABC that started in 1976 and basically altering how Hollywood honors itself.
The shift represents a transparent acknowledgment of the ceremony’s diminished grip on American tradition. Oscar viewership peaked in 1998, when 55 million individuals tuned in to observe “Titanic” sweep the awards. The 2025 broadcast, in the meantime, drew 19.7 million viewers—a five-year excessive, however barely a 3rd of that peak.
The Academy had been exploring options as ABC’s contract neared its 2028 expiration, and YouTube’s bid evidently surpassed what conventional broadcasters supplied.
“We’re thrilled to enter right into a multifaceted world partnership with YouTube to be the longer term residence of the Oscars and our year-round Academy programming,” stated Academy CEO Invoice Kramer and Academy President Lynette Howell Taylor in a joint assertion. “The Academy is a world group, and this partnership will permit us to develop entry to the work of the Academy to the biggest worldwide viewers attainable—which might be useful for our Academy members and the movie neighborhood.”
That world attain is the guts of the calculation. YouTube boasts greater than two billion viewers worldwide, and the ceremony will stream reside and free to all of them, plus YouTube TV subscribers in america. The platform will present closed captioning and audio tracks in a number of languages—accessibility options that replicate how youthful audiences eat content material.
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan framed the partnership as each preservation and evolution. “The Oscars are certainly one of our important cultural establishments, honoring excellence in storytelling and artistry,” Mohan stated. “Partnering with the academy to deliver this celebration of artwork and leisure to viewers everywhere in the world will encourage a brand new technology of creativity and movie lovers whereas staying true to the Oscars’ storied legacy.”
The deal contains greater than the principle telecast. YouTube good points rights to red-carpet protection, behind-the-scenes programming, the Oscar nominations announcement, Governors Ball entry, Academy member interviews, movie teaching programs, and podcasts. It additionally turns into the unique worldwide residence for the Governors Awards, Pupil Academy Awards, and Scientific and Technical Awards—ceremonies that beforehand obtained little consideration.
Monetary phrases weren’t disclosed, however the association makes the Oscars the primary of leisure’s “large 4” awards reveals—the Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, and Tonys—to desert broadcast tv completely. ABC will proceed airing the ceremony by way of 2028, which incorporates the milestone one hundredth Oscars, earlier than ceding the stage.
The transfer underscores a broader migration of reside occasions to streaming platforms. YouTube already instructions the biggest share of U.S. streaming tv viewership, in accordance with Nielsen. And whereas Netflix has acquired rights to the SAG Awards, the Oscars represents a much more important prize: Hollywood’s final model.
Trade response has been divided. Some view it as crucial modernization. Others see symbolism within the ceremony’s demotion from community tv’s primetime throne to a free platform the place viewers routinely skip pre-roll adverts. Screenwriter Daniel Kunka captured the nervousness on X: “Broadcasting the Oscars on YouTube is like shaking arms with the man who’s attempting to kill you.”