San Francisco Frontiers - Oscars audience drops, viewing figures show

Around 17.9 million people saw political thriller "One Battle After Another," starring Leonardo DiCaprio, take home the top prize at Hollywood's premier awards gala on Sunday.

That included people watching on the ABC broadcast network and streamer Hulu, both of which are owned by Disney.

The 98th Academy Awards was hosted by comedian Conan O'Brien, and featured musical segments that paid tribute to the Netflix phenomenon "K-Pop Demon Hunters" and box-office hit "Sinners," Ryan Coogler's vampire meditation on race relations in America.

Michael B. Jordan, who played twin brothers Smoke and Stack in "Sinners," took home the best actor Oscar, after a tight race in which Timothee Chalamet had been expected to triumph for his unlikeable ping pong player in "Marty Supreme."

The show also included a lengthy "In Memoriam" segment, paying tribute to actor Robert Redford, which included a rare stage performance from Barbra Streisand.

The Academy Awards broadcast, which once routinely drew audiences of 40 million, saw its viewership plummet to 10.4 million in the pandemic strangled year of 2021.

Since then, it had been gradually recovering viewership, until this year.

In 2025, when Sean Baker's "Anora" was named Best Picture, the broadcast reached a wider audience thanks to streaming services, which brought the event to mobile phones and computers.

This year's decline aligns with trends seen in other awards season events, such as the Golden Globes and the Grammys, both of which experienced similar drops in viewership.

Sunday's telecast also faced competition from sports with the World Baseball Classic semi-finals, in which the United States defeated the Dominican Republic.

The Oscars, which close out Hollywood's awards season, will be broadcast exclusively on YouTube starting in 2029.

V.Mitchell--SFF