The Most and Least Popular Award Shows Globally

The Oscars

Where else to start but the granddaddy of them all? The Academy Awards (better known as The Oscars) is the prize that all actors and actresses want to snare, but is it still popular in the homes of the United States?

The viewership of the Academy Awards (Oscars) from 2000 to 2024 reveals significant fluctuations, reflecting changing audience preferences, the rise of alternative viewing platforms, and broader cultural shifts.

In the early 2000s, the Oscars enjoyed strong viewership, peaking at 46.33 million viewers in 2000, with numbers consistently staying around 42-44 million through to 2004. This period marked the Oscars as a major cultural event, attracting a broad audience yearly.

However, from 2005 to 2009, a slight decline began, with viewership dipping to 36.31 million in 2009. Despite remaining relatively stable during this period, this downward trend hinted at the start of a shift in how audiences consumed entertainment differently.

The 2010s saw the Oscars fluctuating with occasional spikes, such as the 43.74 million viewers in 2014. Still, by 2018, viewership had hit a record low of 26.5 million – a worrying sign for those who consider themselves part of Hollywood’s elite.

The event’s audience had increasingly splintered as younger viewers increasingly turned to on-demand content and streaming services, leaving traditional TV broadcasts like the Oscars more vulnerable.

The decline deepened in 2020 and 2021 when COVID-19 changed the live ceremony format significantly. In 2020, the Oscars garnered only 23.6 million viewers, and by 2021, this number plummeted to an all-time low of just 10.4 million – nearly 36 million less than 21 years prior.

However, signs of recovery began to emerge in 2022, with viewership rising to 16.6 million viewers, and the 2023 ceremony saw a slight increase to 18.7 million, followed by 19.5 million viewers in 2024.

While these numbers still fall far behind the 30+ million viewership of the early 2010s, the positive trend signals a potential rebound and the hope will be that the audience can grow even further for the 2025 edition of the event.

At the same time, it also underscores the ongoing struggle the Oscars face in re-engaging an audience that increasingly favours digital and on-demand content – a struggle that many other established events are also now up against.

The Critic's Choice

Cate Blanchett, Critics' Choice Awards 2023 // UPI / Alamy Stock Photo

Next we move to the Critics’ Choice, it may not be the biggest award show but it still has its place on the entertainment calendar. Is that place getting bigger or smaller?

The viewership of the Critics' Choice Awards from 2020 to 2024 shows notable fluctuations, reflecting changing audience interests and the broader impact of digital streaming and the ongoing effects of the pandemic.

In 2020, the ceremony attracted 1.2 million viewers, marking a relatively healthy start to the decade for the awards show. However, the following year, in 2021, viewership drastically dropped to just 0.365 million - the lowest in the show’s history.

Of course, this sharp decline can be attributed to the impact of the COVID-19. Because of the inability to host the show in person and have attendees ready to claim their prizes, this caused the show to shift to a virtual format and likely diminished the usual TV appeal of the event.

Following the steep drop in 2021, the Critics' Choice Awards saw a recovery in 2022, with viewership rebounding to 1.1 million viewers, suggesting that audiences were slowly returning to live, televised events as the world adjusted to post-pandemic conditions.

However, the recovery was short-lived, as viewership dipped again in 2023 to 0.9 million. Despite this, the show managed a slight uptick in 2024, reaching 1 million viewers, demonstrating some stability in recent years after the pandemic-era slump.

Overall, the data reflects an ongoing struggle for the Critics' Choice Awards to capture a larger audience, with fluctuations likely driven by the broader decline in traditional TV viewership, competition from digital platforms, and the challenges faced by awards shows to remain relevant.

The Brit Awards

Brit Award during the Brit Awards at the O2 Arena, London // PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo

Once a year, the best in British music and beyond descend on the Brit Awards, but is it as popular as it once was? With it previously being a rather raucous affair that generated plenty of scandals, it now seems relatively sedate, but has that come at the cost of a decent UK viewing audience?

The viewership of the Brit Awards from 1999 to 2024 shows a consistent decline in audience numbers, reflecting changing viewing habits and increasing competition from digital and streaming platforms.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Brit Awards was undoubtedly a major television event in the UK and pretty much the one thing that everybody would discuss at work or school the next day.

A statement reflected by a viewership peak of 9.86 million in 1999 and then staying consistently high through the early 2000s and even as viewing figures began to fall from its peak, the viewership was still a healthy in the middle of the decade.

From 2010 onwards, the Brit Awards saw a steady decline, with viewership dipping to 4.7 million in 2006 and continuing its downward trend over the next decade and by 2014, the ceremony had dropped to 3.84 million viewers.

However, there were occasional upticks, such as in 2015 (5.99 million) and 2016 (6.22 million), these were short-lived, and by 2021, the Brit Awards had hit a low of 3.27 million viewers, once again coinciding with the impact of the COVID-19 and changes in how audiences consumed live events.

Since then, viewership has remained low, with only 2.7 million viewers in 2022, followed by a slight recovery to 3.79 million in 2023. However, the 2024 ceremony saw another decline to 2.92 million viewers, continuing the trend of diminishing television interest in the show.

This data highlights that the Brit Awards struggling to maintain its audience despite being a long-standing part of UK music culture and is part of a broader trend in the entertainment industry, where live TV events must adapt to the changing media landscape to engage viewers.

The Grammys

Grammy Awards // bella1105/shutterstock

As Beyonce ruled the roost at the 2025 Grammy’s there was plenty of spectacle on that night’s award show but did it translate to an increase in viewership in homes across the United States?

The viewership of the Grammy Awards from 2000 to 2025 showcases significant fluctuations, with a combination of peaks and steep declines reflecting broader trends in media consumption and the evolving popularity of live televised events.

Back in the early 2000s, the Grammys consistently attracted solid viewership, with 27.79 million viewers in 2000 and 26.65 million viewers in 2001 and then stable viewership of around 25 million for the subsequent years that followed.

That stability was blown out of the water in 2012 when a peak of 39.91 watched the award show. That year’s edition of the Grammy’s was one that seemingly captured the public’s attention with both major performances and cultural moments that live long in the memory.

However, after 2012, the Grammys experienced a steady decline in viewership. From 2013 to 2015, viewership hovered around 28 million viewers, but this was a notable drop from the 2012 high. By 2016, the numbers dropped further to 24.95 million viewers,

By 2020, the Grammys garnered just 18.7 million viewers, a significant drop from previous years, and this decline was further increased in 2021, when the ceremony plummeted to an all-time low of 9.23 million viewers (albeit for the same Covid-based reason as mentioned before).

The ceremony saw a slight post-pandemic recovery in 2022, with viewership rebounding to 9.59 million, followed by a moderate increase to 12.55 million in 2023. Fast forward a year and the Grammys gained further traction with 16.9 million viewers,

Which brings us to the recent edition of the Grammy’s and compared to 2024, the viewing figures dropped to 15.4 million viewers – a decrease of 1.5 million on the year before and something not even the power of Beyonce can control.

All-Time Highs

If these are the trends of the award shows, we can also take a look at some of the all-time highest viewing figures in awards history:

The Academy Awards would love to see a viewership of 57.25 million for its 2025 edition but with so many different reasons and destinations for your eyeballs to go, you would have to imagine the figures will be a lot more modest.

The same goes for any edition of the American Music Awards and just over 40 years ago the 1984 edition of the show generated a television viewership of 48 million in the United States – more than eight million more than the Grammy’s all-time peak in 2012.

The Search Engines

Which means if people are no longer watching award shows on television, are they consuming the content on the internet and if so, what shows are people searching for on search engines.

We took a snapshot of search data on google for a cluster of award shows and this is what we found:

The data reveals that the Grammys are the most popular award show in the U.S. with the highest search volume of 135,000 per month, but they also face considerable competition with 661 million search results.

The Academy Awards (Oscars) follow closely with 60,500 searches but have the most intense competition with 1.2 billion results. By comparison, The Golden Globes attract 110,000 searches, with moderate competition (446 million results).

On a lesser scale, The Critics' Choice Awards have a smaller audience with just 3,600 searches but still face notable competition with 496 million results. While the Brit Awards have a solid following in the UK with 8,100 searches and the least competition, at 138 million results.

Still In Fashion?

The data across the viewership and search volume metrics for major award shows highlights several key trends. In terms of viewership, both the Oscars and Grammys saw peak numbers in the early 2000s but have been in steady decline in recent years.

Overall, while traditional award shows such as the two mentioned still attract large viewership and search volume, they face growing competition and shifting audience preferences, particularly with younger demographics turning to streaming platforms and digital content.

The decline in viewership across these events suggests that although there is still an element of popularity attached to them, their relevance on the annual entertainment calendar is beginning to wane across the board.

Sources

https://www.statista.com/statistics/253743/academy-awards-number-of-viewers/

https://www.nexstar.tv/29th-annual-critics-choice-awards-delivers-ceremonys-largest-audience-on-the-cw-network-in-four-years/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brit_Awards

https://www.thewrap.com/grammys-2025-ratings-viewership-cbs/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.semrush.com/analytics/keywordoverview