YouTube has won the rights to stream the Oscars, after decades of it being broadcast on network TV.
The ceremony will be available live and for free on the platform beginning in 2029, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Wednesday.
The move marks end ABC’s 50-year run as the Academy Awards’ exclusive broadcaster.
The deal also symbolizes streaming’s growing influence within the film industry.
‘We are thrilled to enter into a multifaceted global partnership with YouTube to be the future home of the Oscars and our year-round Academy programming,’ a statement from Academy Awards CEO Bill Kramer and President Lynette Howell Taylor read.
The two said that the new partnership ‘will allow us to expand access to the work of the Academy to the largest worldwide audience possible.’
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan also welcomed the deal in his own statement.
Both parties said the ceremony will be broadcast live and for free, with additional access for users of YouTube TV.
YouTube TV was locked in a weeks-long standoff with ABC’s parent company, Disney, up until last month.
The feud was a licensing fight, started after Disney said the platform owned by Google had refused to pay fair rates to air Disney-owned channels like ESPN, ABC, and FX.
The channels were blacked out for several weeks, before the two reached an unspecified deal on November 17.
YouTube was sure to make a point in a press release Wednesday that the awards will be available on YouTube TV.
Ratings for the ceremony have declined in recent years, with viewership down to less than 20 million. That’s compared to 57 million viewers seen in 1998, when Titanic took home best picture.
Repeat hosts like Jimmy Kimmel have failed to stop the bleeding, which was worsened by the pandemic.
In an interview with Status last March, Puck’s Matthew Belloni predicted that a streamer like Netflix could possibly snap up the rights to the broadcast and said that ‘the Academy is already talking to Disney/ABC about a possible re-up.’
Netflix already snagged the licensing rights to air the SAG Awards from TNT back in 2023.
The global reach of YouTube – which is owned by Google – could rectify that.
The platforms first show will be the 101st Oscars ceremony.
The show was first televised by NBC in 1953. ABC took the reins in the 60s. It lost the rights to NBC in the early 70s before regaining them in 1976.
Prior to Conan O’Brien last year, Kimmel hosted the ceremony for two years straight. He also hosted the show in 2017 and 2018.
A shared hosting experiment spearheaded by Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes, and Regina Hall fell flat in 2022, securing a record low of 16 million viewers.
For the three years prior, the Academy did away with a host altogether – a decision that did away with decades of tradition.
In 2018, the Hollywood Reporter called the once sought-after gig ‘the least wanted job in Hollywood.’
Billy Crystal hosted the Oscars nine times throughout the ’90s and 2000s, to much better results.
