The 2025 Oscars are now in the books, and they came complete with an experiment in streaming the awards for the first time. The ceremony has aired on ABC for decades, and this year, it was also streamed on Hulu, complete with an abrupt ending before the ceremony was even over.
Now, Deadline is reporting that the Oscars will have a new TV home in the near future. The Academy’s negotiating window with ABC has lapsed, which means that they are now free to shop the ceremony to other studios. The licensing fee was apparently the main reason that negotiations broke down. When ABC inked its last deal in 2016, they agreed to pay $100 million a year for the ceremony. That deal is set to lapse following the 2028 ceremony.
That fee is no small number, especially since Oscar ratings have been on the decline from their zenith in the late 1990s and early 2000s. ABC and the Oscars have partnered on the Oscars for nearly 50 years, and while the relationship has been largely positive, ABC has pressured the Academy to change up the ceremony in recent years in an effort to produce better ratings. The Oscars have been largely resistant to making these changes, in part because they are a ceremony steeped in tradition that has a 100-year history.
It seems possible that the Oscars could end up on a streaming service of one sort or another, given how much interest there has been in live events. It’s also possible, though, at least according to reporting in Deadline, that ABC could still wind up with the ceremony if the Academy doesn’t find another interested buyer.
