Oscar viewership has been steadily recovering since the all-time low (10.4 million) in 2021, increasing every year since to a healthy 19.5 million viewers in 2024. But it’s not all bad news for 2025.

Los Angeles — The Oscars dropped nearly 8% to 18 million viewers Sunday, the first year-to-year decline for the ABC telecast since 2021. The decrease is hardly a shock, as the majority of this year's Oscars contenders were not box office hits, including "Anora," which won for best picture and four other trophies.

Just under 18.1 million people tuned into ABC’s telecast of the 97th Academy Awards on Sunday, marking a 7% decrease from the year before. That total, which comes from a combination of Nielsen’s measurement of linear viewers on ABC plus Disney’s own data regarding livestreams on Hulu,

After three consecutive years of growth, the live 97th Academy Awards slipped to 18.07 million viewers across ABC and Hulu.

Final figures, which will be released Tuesday, may pull the show a little closer to the 2024 tally. Despite the overall dip, though, Sunday’s Oscars posted gains among adults 18-49 and adults 18-34, hitting a post-pandemic high in the latter demographic.

However, the broadcast delivered a 3.92 rating in Adults 18-49, up +3% year over year (vs. 3.82 rating) — earning the show’s highest performance in the key adult demographic in two years (since 3/12/23).