The 98th Oscars audience slipped to a four-year low this year with 17.86 million viewers across ABC and Hulu on Sunday.
That’s down about 9% from last year, when the show tallied nearly 20M viewers after Disney accounted for PC and mobile viewing. So, it’s possible this number might go up slightly. It is, of course, still worth noting that’s much higher than most other award shows in recent years, including the Golden Globes, Emmys and Grammys.
It’s difficult to say exactly why the show underperformed this year, especially since the viewership numbers for the Oscars had been on the rise recently.
Watch on Deadline
Keeping in line with the last few years, the Academy opted for an earlier start time again, kicking off the ceremony at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT, meaning the show stayed largely in primetime. Over the last few years, that has certainly seemed to help retain some of the audience who might have tapped out previously, when it was quite common for the Oscars telecast to go past 11 p.m. ET.
The show was also minutes away from being one of the longest Oscars ever, though. So, while it was an exciting night with some history making wins and even a few surprises, the sheer length of it was likely a turn-off for viewers.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another scored a leading six wins, and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners was next with four, ending a marathon awards season in which the studio mates duked it out over the course of several months. Amid the studio’s $110 billion acquisition by Paramount Skydance, Warner Bros led distributors with 11 statuettes. Netflix was next with seven, including three for Frankenstein. The streamer’s KPop Demon Hunters was the only other film to score multiple trophies Sunday, and no other studio got more than one.
Michael B. Jordan won the contentious Best Actor race for his dual role as Smoke and Stack in Sinners, following up his triumph at the Actor Awards two weeks ago. Jessie Buckley then surprised no one with her Best Actress win for Focus Features’ Hamnet.
Read the full winners list here and check out Deadline’s review of the 2026 show here.