The times when the award shows had close to over 57 million viewers tuning in to listen or watch the award shows is over, and its decline in popularity has picked up in recent years.
Before COVID-19 and the rise of streaming or social media, the iconic award shows were always hyped up and attracted large audiences yearly. But, this year and all the years since COVID-19, audiences watching the award shows have decreased significantly and are not re-gaining popularity.
Freshman Emily Cypher says, “Most awards shows can get boring really fast with little spark of entertainment. I think people just started asking why sit for an hour to listen to people I may dislike or not know, when I could just search up a video to see who won and listen to my favorite artist’s speech, which is what causes unrealistic expectations.”
The very first award show, the Oscars, began in May of 1929, with the others following in the years after. Award shows are television based, where celebrities are chosen by the programs in charge of each of the awards to receive these awards for their outstanding achievements, performances, and films.
The Oscars were the first award show, but were not broadcast on the radio until their second year. The first Oscars took a total of 15 minutes, nothing compared to the multi-hour marathons they are now.
The statue that everyone wants to win during the Oscars is modeled after the Mexican actor, Emilio Fernández, the statues nickname is “Oscar”, giving the award show its nickname.
The most recent award show, the Grammys, was held on February 1 and was awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. With a total of about 14.4 million viewers this year, which is a lot but was about a six percent decline from last year (2025) and even greater decline from the previous year (2024).
The award shows began losing traction around 2014, but didn’t start losing significant popularity until the 2020s, when COVID hit, causing streaming and social media to take off.
When COVID-19 hi,t the audiences for the award shows dipped significantly and only rose a little in the years after, before mostly flatlining, reaching nowhere near the considerable audiences they used to attract.
COVID-19 forced many people into quarantine, so they turned to screens for entertainment, allowing for social media and streaming to become the favored source of entertainment and gained so much popularity that even after the quarantine ended, it has stayed the favorite source of entertainment.
Junior Nicole Larios says, “It’s mostly the same artist [winning] over and over again, so it just feels repeated.”
Another reason many have stopped watching the award shows is that they feel the shows’ programs and organizations do not accurately give out the awards anymore. For example, the Grammys have been nicknamed the “Scammys” due to questionable wins, like Beyonce’s winning album, “Cowboy Carter” for the best country album, when many would argue her album barely fits into the country genre compared to the more traditional country artists nominated that year. Plus the fact that the Oscars’ voters were not even required to watch any of the films they nominated until this year makes people question the winners of previous years even more.