US Oscars TV viewership:
2014 — 43.7M
2015 — 37.3M
2016 — 34.4M
2017 — 32.9M
2018 — 26.5M
2019 — 29.6M
2020 — 23.6M
2021 — 10.4M
2022 — 16.6M
2023 — 18.7M
2024 — 19.5M
2025 — 19.7M
I’m not quite sure why it’s halved over the last decade.
I suspect there’s less of a celebrity culture – with many celebrities being TikTok stars these days, not film stars.
Mixed with there being so many forms of entertainment now — film has a lot more competition.
And also I think films are less of an ‘event’ now, due to the rise of Netflix. Award shows for them might seem a bit silly. Many films today are designed to be digestible whilst eating dinner.