Against tough Sunday Night Football competition, the 82nd Annual Golden Globe Awards averaged 10.1 million viewers, according to VideoAmp overnight data shared by the show’s producer Dick Clark Prods. and network CBS.
A comparable VideoAmp ratings information for last year’s Globes was not made available, making an apples-to-apples comparison impossible. In its first year on CBS, the 2024 Golden Globes averaged about 10M people in Nielsen’s time zone-adjusted fast nationals, including Out-of-Home ratings, up from 9.4M Live+Same Day preliminary viewers.
CBS is only offering VideoAmp numbers due to parent company Paramount’s ongoing dispute with Nielsen. VideoAmp ratings typically are slightly higher than Nielsen figures but with 2024 Nielsens and 2025 VideoAmp numbers so close, it is hard to say with certainty whether this year’s ceremony was on par or slightly off from last year.
Either way, the Globes viewership continues to be on an upswing after hitting its lowest audience ever two years ago when it returned to airwaves post-HFPA scandal with 6.3M Nielsen viewers.
That 2023 ceremony aired on a Tuesday though, which also likely contributed to the dip in viewership. The show has done much better now that it’s returned to Sunday nights. As always with Sundays, the Globes got a lead-in from the NFL, which tends to provide a big ratings boost.
There were unusual circumstances last night with CBS carrying the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Denver Broncos game. Since the Chiefs sat most of the starting players, including Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes, and were demolished by the Broncos because of it, the matchup wasn’t the most attractive lead-in and weaker than last year’s. Still, it likely offered a bit of a bump.
The Globes were also competing with NBC’s Sunday Night Football matchup between Minnesota and Detroit, which attracted 28.5M viewers, according to Nielsen, which is apparently the biggest SNF regular season finale in 12 years.
Per CBS, the live-streaming audience for the Globes was up 9% from last year on Paramount+ and the CBS App, not a surprise as TV viewing continues to shift from linear to streaming.
According to social media data attributed Social Content Ratings and Quid Monitor and released by DCP, this year’s Golden Globes was the #1 broadcast special across all of TV in the last 12 months, driving 40 million social interactions on show night; it was the most social Golden Globes ever, up +124% YOY, surpassing 45.1 billion potential impressions, up 52% from last year.
The Golden Globes are one of the many award shows trying to regain pre-pandemic viewership levels. In 2020, more than 18M tuned in for the ceremony on NBC.
That was the last telecast before the awards show came under fire for revelations about a lack of diversity and allegations of impropriety within the HFPA, the organization that previously awarded the Globes but was disbanded in 2023. Last year was the first Globes to hand out awards under its new governing body.
There were several shakeups at this year’s ceremony, like Fernanda Torres‘ big win as Best Female Actor in a Motion Picture for Sony’s I’m Still Here and Demi Moore’s victory for Female Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Focus Features’ The Substance. Netflix‘s Emilia Pérez won Best Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and A24’s The Brutalist won Best Motion Picture Drama. See the full winners’ list here.
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