Oscar Ratings 2026: A Hidden Success Story

[PGage]

I have been trying to track and understand for a while now, predating the pandemic, how the popular press discusses, and often distorts the ratings performances of big television events, like the Super Bowl and award shows. 

The Hollywood Reporter’s coverage of this year’s Oscar ratings follows the familiar press template: highlight the 1.9‑million viewer drop from last year (about 9 percent) and frame the story as evidence that the Oscars “have a ratings problem.” But that narrative is a distortion created by focusing on short term year‑to‑year fluctuations rather than the structural trend. When you compare the post‑pandemic ratings to the pre‑pandemic glidepath — using projected ratings for the 4 years if 2023–2026 based on the four years before COVID (2017-2020) — the real story is that the Oscars are significantly over‑performing in their ratings. Last year’s telecast drew 5.1 million more viewers than the pre‑pandemic trend predicted; this year’s show beat that trend by 5.06 million (see table below).

This is a relative success story, not a failure. Sure, the long‑term decline in linear television continues, but the pace of that decline for the Oscar telecast has slowed dramatically. The rebound appears to come from two deliberate shifts: 1) consistently nominating at least two genuine box‑office hits each year —  with at least one of them positioned as a serious contender in a major category — which restores broad popular appeal (see below for more discussion on definition of a blockbuster); 2) expanding access through streaming, which has brought younger viewers back despite Disney/Hulu’s technical issues the last two years.

With the upcoming move to YouTube — the platform where younger generations actually consume video — the Oscars’ ratings potential looks brighter going forward, not dimmer.

 ***Operational definition of blockbuster: For this analysis I defined a blockbuster as: 1) a film that earns at least $350 million in global box office (inflation‑adjusted to 2025 dollars) and 2) demonstrated “four‑quadrant reach”, meaning it attracted men and women, younger and older audiences.  When this standard is applied to the four pre‑pandemic years (2017–2020), only one year featured at least two blockbusters among its Best Picture nominees (2019:  which actually has three- Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star Is Born); this is also the year in that period that over performed predicted ratings. The other three years each had only one Blockbuster. By contrast, when the same definition is applied to the four post‑pandemic years (2023–2026), all four years included 2 four‑quadrant blockbusters.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/oscars-2026-tv-ratings-1236534637/

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[Tom Wolper]

I’m trying to figure out how you did your predicted ratings. If it’s a linear progression based on previous ratings, there’s no evidence that the trend was going to continue. I don’t support getting all riled up about year-to-year fluctuations. The audience for the live broadcast continues to fall and ABC and the producers haven’t found a way to reverse that.

I don’t follow the ceremony and one reason is that is the first time I’ve heard of most of the nominees. This year, maybe because I have HBO max and Peacock, and they have 6 or 7 of the nominees, I’ve heard of most of them and even have already watched a couple. I don’t know how much my experience extends to other people.

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[Mark Jeffries]

Most of those subtitled movies that Neon distributed are going to end up on Hulu pretty soon (sometime this year, Hulu and Disney+ are merging to be like Disney+ in the rest of the world that isn't so protective of the little children). "F1" is an Apple movie and is on Apple. "Frankenstein", "KPop Demon Hunters" and "Train Dreams" are Netflix (and one of the tied shorts, "Singers"--the New Yorker's "Two People Exchanging Saliva," the other short winner, is on YouTube).

Mark Jeffries
Saints Spotlight Editor
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[PGage]

Well, I guess that’s a matter of opinion. I think it was pretty clear that there’s been a Steady decrease in television ratings for many years not just the four years prior to the pandemic. I picked those four years just because we have four years since the recovery so I thought it would be most symmetrical. 

The underlying point is if TV ratings are steadily decreasing every year it doesn’t really make sense to point that a year to your decrease an Oscar ratings and say there’s something wrong with the Oscars. There’s something wrong with the old broadcast television model, but that’s well known. The Oscars as a TV show have actually held Onto their ratings at a level that is better than would have been expected or than other television shows do that are not football games.

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[Tom Wolper]

I agree with all you said. I just don’t believe in reacting to news reports based on year-to-year ratings changes. Of course it’s lazy of them.

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