YouTube hits play on bid to broadcast the Oscars

The video platform has reportedly floated itself as a dark horse candidate when ABC's rights expire in a few years.

By Emma Keates | August 18, 2025 | 4:04pm

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YouTube hits play on bid to broadcast the Oscars

Every good Oscar race needs a dark horse nominee, even the race to own the Oscars itself. YouTube has presented itself as that very out-of-left-field pick, Bloomberg reports. While ABC will air the ceremony through 2028—as it has done for decades at this point—the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences is currently in the middle of negotiations about the future of Hollywood’s biggest night. If YouTube had its druthers, that night would also be small enough to fit right inside its little video player.

As other streamers scoop up live rights left and right, YouTube has also shown an increased interest in the space. YouTube TV recently acquired exclusive rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, and Bloomberg points out that the streamer also made a big deal of just how many people watched Taylor Swift’s album announcing appearance on the Kelce brother’s New Heights podcast last week. (Approximately 13 million people tuned in within 24 hours, Variety reports.)

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YouTube snatching the Oscars would be a shock, but it also makes a sort of sense. Nominations are already announced via a livestream on the platform, as they are with most award shows these days. Other film-specific awards like the Independent Spiritm Awards are already using the platform to broadcast their ceremonies. Bloomberg also points out that YouTube is “the single most-watched video platform in the world” and would almost certainly deliver eyeballs after viewership for ABC’s broadcast dipped for the first time in four years this March.

Still, nothing has been decided as of this writing, and other competitors have their own standard cable networks or connections to major studios to sweeten the pot. ABC will almost certainly make a bid to extend its contract, and Bloomberg reports that NBCUniversal, Netflix, Amazon, and Paramount are also hovering. We’ll see who wins the big one in the coming months and years.