Oscars 2024

Source: ITV

ITV’s Oscars 2024 host Jonathan Ross

A peak audience of 1.9m viewers tuned into UK broadcaster ITV’s coverage of the Academy Awards last night.

According to figures published by Screen’s sister title Broadcast, the ceremony’s 1.9m peak audience came at 10.30pm – equating to a 21% share of UK viewers. 

In total, the Oscars were watched by an average of 637,000 viewers across ITV’s four hour coverage of the awards for a 14.9% share.

For ITV, these figures will likely be regarded as a success. Broadcast reported that ITV’s Oscars coverage had nearly double the average number of viewers that the broadcaster traditionally gets across the same time period.

Sunday marked the first time that coverage of the Academy Awards in the UK has been free-to-air in two decades, after ITV picked up the broadcast rights from Sky. It also aired on streaming platform ITVX.

ITV’s coverage was also well ahead of Sky’s live coverage for 2023 which averaged 95,000 viewers.

Because of the time difference between Los Angeles and London, ITV’s Awards coverage started at 10.15pm UK time. The UK show was hosted by Jonathan Ross.