Oscars ditch television, choose YouTube as new home

The Oscars will be available to watch exclusively on YouTube from 2029, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday.

The new multi-year deal means Hollywood’s most prestigious awards ceremony will be viewable only on streaming for the first time, ending a decades-long relationship with US broadcaster ABC.

“We are thrilled to enter into a multifaceted global partnership with YouTube to be the future home of the Oscars and our year-round Academy programming,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Lynette Howell Taylor said in a statement.

The annual Academy Awards, which celebrate the year’s top achievements in film and draw the world’s biggest A-list stars to a Hollywood theater, are regularly watched by around 20 million Americans and millions more globally.

ABC’s latest contract to broadcast the show had been due to end in 2028, with the 100th Academy Awards. The Disney-owned channel will continue to air the Oscars up until then.

But the new deal with Google-owned YouTube represents a radical new direction for the show, and an industry that has long been wary about the impact of streamers on cinema.

Hollywood has endured a challenging contraction in recent years, as it grapples with younger generations’ changing viewing habits.

The most recent Oscars were viewed by 19.69 million people, a figure boosted by the ceremony being shown live simultaneously on Disney’s streamer Hulu along with ABC for the first time.

Disney said the broadcast was the most-watched Oscars in five years, although the Hulu stream was beset by technical glitches that left some viewers unable to see the final prizes.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Oscars ratings sank as low as 10.4 million.

The Academy Awards telecast regularly topped 40 million just a decade ago.