Americans still give awards shows consideration, a new AP-NORC poll
finds
[September 12, 2025]
By ANDREW DALTON and AMELIA THOMSON-DEVEAUX
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Many Americans still want to thank the academy, at
least a little.
About half of U.S. adults say they’ve watched all or most of an awards
show on TV or streaming in the past year, according to a new poll from
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, while just
over half say they’ve watched clips from an awards show. About 6 in 10
say they’ve watched an awards show, clips or both in the last year.
The results suggest that some vitality remains in the seemingly stodgy
old tuxedo-and-gown world of the Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, Tonys and
Golden Globes, whose makers have fought to make them relevant when
Americans have more entertainment and engagement choices than ever.
And they come at a moment when the Oscars and the Emmys have seen a
short-term uptick in viewers after cultural shifts that brought a huge
long-term drop in people gathering around a television to watch an
awards show together.
“These days, it’s more focused on the performances,” said Walter Hanley,
69, who used to work in the music industry and still watches most music
awards shows. “Back in the ’70s and ’80s when I would attend regional
Grammys in person, it was more about the awards — sound engineering and
producers and that kind of thing.”
Hanley thinks the pivot has helped awards shows keep up with the times.
“You have to cater to what the viewers want,” he said.
Some awards shows have rebounded
The Oscars, which remain the most viewed and most engaged-with awards
show, are coming off a five-year high in viewers. Nearly 20 million
people watched “Anora” win best picture and four other top trophies in
March.
But that's down from the more than 55 million who watched “Titanic” win
11 in 1998, when awards shows truly were the king of the world.
Some, like Christine Steingraber, 64, watch most of the awards shows
that air on TV. The Oscars are her favorite, but she watches the Emmys
and the Grammys, too, even when she’s not familiar with the shows or the
artists up for awards.
“It opens up another perspective as to whether I want to see that show
or hear that artist,” she said.
The biggest awards shows — like the Oscars, the Grammys and the Emmys —
have streaming partners, but they generally don't appear there until the
following day. By that point, viral moments and winners' reactions have
already been plastered online in short clips.
The poll suggests that awards shows may be appealing to a new
generation. People under the age of 45 are more likely to say they have
watched both an awards show and clips in the past year, compared with
people age 45 or older.
Clips help extend awards shows’ lives
Meme-able moments like the “La-La Land” fiasco or Will Smith’s slap at
the Oscars or the hits and misses of Golden Globes monologues have shown
the shows can still have life after social media took over for TV for
many.
The survey found that the people who watched full awards shows largely
overlap with clip viewers, although people are slightly more likely to
say they’ve just watched clips rather than just watching shows. About 4
in 10 say they haven’t watched clips or shows.
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Mikey Madison, winner of the award for best performance by an
actress in a leading role for "Anora," poses in the press room at
the Oscars on March 2, 2025, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan
Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
 Awards shows — whether they’re
consumed through clips or live viewing – are more popular among
Black and Hispanic adults than among white adults. About 7 in 10
Black and Hispanic adults say they’ve watched clips or at least most
of a show in the past year, compared with just over half of white
adults.
Shows including the BET Awards and the Latin Grammys have reached
more targeted audiences, just as the MTV Video Music Awards became a
way to bring young viewers into the awards audience starting in the
mid-1980s.
Rose Lucas, 77, says she used to watch the BET Awards, because she
enjoyed the R&B and hip-hop performances. She enjoys music awards
shows, but she doesn't typically watch the full show live. She’s
more likely to watch short clips of performances the next day.
“I don’t watch any of them live anymore. I don’t tune in to them,”
Lucas said. “(They are) too long. I’m not as interested anymore.”
Most people aren’t watching frequently
When the Emmys return on Sunday, all eyes will be on the winners —
and the ratings. The last Emmys got a much bigger boost than its
predecessor, held in January 2024 because of Hollywood's strikes —
one of several challenges including the coronavirus pandemic and
this year's wildfires that have thrown awards show norms out of
whack.
Television has in some ways overtaken movies as a prestige screen
art, but that hasn't translated into similar awards prestige. The
Emmys audience is less than half that of the Oscars.
The long-term awards ratings decline closely tracks with real-time
broadcast and cable television viewing across the board for
virtually everything in the U.S. but football.
And while there are dozens of awards shows each year, only a handful
have a significant audience. The poll found that about 3 in 10
Americans said they had watched awards shows at least “several
times" in the past year.
That could be a result of Americans having more options than ever in
what to watch — and many being too busy to tune in.
Inez Parker, 88, said she watches awards shows on live TV, and she
expects she'll tune into the Emmys this weekend. But she doesn't
stream the show again or watch clips after the fact — she's too busy
for that.
“I usually watch all of it,” she said. “I'll watch it live, and
that's it. I don't watch it again.”
___
Thomson-DeVeaux reported from Washington. AP polling reporter Linley
Sanders contributed to this report.
___
The AP-NORC poll of 1,182 adults was conducted Aug. 21-25, using a
sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which
is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin
of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.8 percentage
points.
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