YouTube has won the bidding war by beating fellow media giants like Netflix and NBC Universal/Peacock to get broadcast rights for the Academy Awards ceremony and related events, starting 2029. So, the Oscars will leave its longtime home of ABC Network to choose a platform that cuts across countries and classes, making the ceremony available for free to viewers around the world.
Oscars’ 100-year history
ABC will bid adieu to the Academy Awards ceremony after a special year — the 100th year anniversary of the ceremony in 2028. The first-ever Oscars ceremony took place as a quick 15-minute affair instead of the full-blown grand ceremony that we see it as today. It was organized on May 16, 1929 at Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of only 270 people.
The first-ever Oscars ceremony in 1928. Image Courtesy: The Academy Museum
The Oscars were first televised on NBC in 1953. That continued till 1960 before ABC took over. Thanks to ABC, the first colour broadcast of the ceremony took place in 1966. NBC regained the broadcast rights in 1970 before they went back to ABC in 1976. Since then, for the past 49 years, ABC has remained the home for the Academy Awards, and will continue to be for another three years before the ceremony starts streaming on YouTube in 2029.
International interest in the Oscars ceremony evolved rapidly, starting from just two South American countries (Chile and Brazil) in 1970 to 76 countries in 1984. In India, the ceremony has lately been streaming on JioHotstar and getting broadcasted on Star Movies and Star Movies Select, given The Walt Disney Co.’s ownership of both Star and ABC.
The future
Starting 2029, YouTube will stream not only the main ceremony, but also red-carpet coverage, the Governors Awards, and the Oscar nominations announcement. This will allow the Academy a much wider base than a traditional network to penetrate the audience, particularly a younger audience, around the world.
Boasting of a viewer base of 2 billion globally, YouTube accounted for 12.90% of all streaming and television content in November, as per a Nielsen report. This is significantly higher than even Netflix, which accounts for a 8.3% share. Thus, the number of viewers are likely to increase post 2029, when compared to that on ABC.
Oscars 2025 was watched by 19.7 million viewers, a slight rise from the 2024 ceremony, which had a viewership of 19.5 million. However, this is less than half of the maximum viewership recorded in the history of Oscars. That happened in 1999, the year James Cameron’s blockbuster romance epic Titanic dominated the awards ceremony. It recorded 55 million viewers on ABC.
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India’s shift towards YouTube
India has been gradually realizing the potential of YouTube, thanks to its booming creator ecosystem. Not only creators and web shows, but even traditional production houses are warming up to the dynamic platform. Earlier this year, Aamir Khan announced that his new film Sitaare Zameen Par, and many other old ones and upcoming ones, will be available exclusively on YouTube instead of streaming platforms after theatrical runs, though on an appointment viewing basis at Rs 100 per watch.
