YouTube to be the only place to watch the Oscars from 2029

The Oscars

The Oscars will be shown only on YouTube from 2029, the Academy said Wednesday. This is a big risk for a film industry that is still unsure about streaming, even though more people now watch things online.

The new five-year deal means Hollywood’s most famous awards show will be available only online for the first time. This ends a partnership with the American TV channel ABC that lasted for many years.

The decision will allow the Academy Awards to reach “the largest worldwide audience possible — which will be beneficial for our Academy members and the film community,” said Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences CEO Bill Kramer and President Lynette Howell Taylor in a statement.

The annual Oscars, which celebrate the year’s best films and attract the world’s biggest stars, are usually watched by about 20 million people in America and millions more around the world.

ABC’s current contract to show the ceremony was set to finish in 2028 with the 100th Academy Awards. The channel, which is owned by Disney, will keep showing the Oscars until that time.

However, the new deal with Google-owned YouTube shows a brave new path for the awards, at a time when more and more people watch everything online.

Streamers owned by Silicon Valley firms have lured top talent away from traditional Hollywood studios with massive contracts — despite filmmakers’ concerns that they rarely show movies on the big screen in theatres for extended runs.

Streamers have also gradually gained wider acceptance at the Academy Awards, where Apple won best picture for “CODA” in 2022.

The SAG Awards, another important Hollywood awards gala which recently rebranded as The Actors Awards, have already moved to Netflix.

YouTube accounts for the biggest share of television viewing time in the United States of any streaming platform, dwarfing even Netflix.

“This collaboration will leverage YouTube’s vast reach and infuse the Oscars and other Academy programming with innovative opportunities for engagement while honoring our legacy,” said the Academy statement.

Financial terms of the new Oscars deal were not disclosed.

Industry website Deadline said “the amount that YouTube was willing to pay didn’t make sense for Disney,” citing anonymous insiders.

An ABC Entertainment spokesperson told AFP: “ABC has been the proud home to The Oscars for more than half a century.

“We look forward to the next three telecasts, including the show’s centennial celebration in 2028, and wish the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences continued success.”

Like the rest of Hollywood, the Oscars have had a hard time lately because younger people are watching things differently.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of people watching the Oscars dropped as low as 10.4 million.

The most recent Oscars were watched by 19.69 million people—the most in five years—because the ceremony was shown live on Disney’s streaming service, Hulu, at the same time as ABC.

However, the Hulu stream had technical problems that meant some viewers could not see the final awards.

Just over ten years ago, more than 40 million people usually watched the Oscars on TV.