Last weekend’s Academy Awards Show gave viewers a breath of fresh air and a return to semi-normalcy as Hollywood’s stars donned mask-less red carpet looks at the in-person event. Streaming Originals took home some major wins with Nomadland carrying off Best Picture in a competition against heavy hitters like Judas and the Black Messiah, Sound of Metal, Promising Young Woman, and more. But streaming wasn’t just popular within nominations, it was also one of the preferred ways to watch the live show go down.
Data from Roku shows that the reach of streaming channels carrying the Oscars during the time of the broadcast increased 18% from 2020 to 2021. As far as audience goes, households who watched the Oscars via streaming were 9% more likely to contain an adult ages 18-49, compared with traditional linear TV’s demographic that was 33% more likely to contain an adult over the age of 65.
It seems as though Roku viewers who watched the Oscars were also interested in other Award Shows this season. According to the data, 36% of Roku Oscar viewers also watched the Grammys while 29% also watched the Golden Globes. But the host-less, non-traditional Academy Awards show didn’t hold viewers’ undivided attention as 64% of viewing households definitely channel-flipped during the event. The most common shows viewers flipped back and forth to were The Equalizer (11% of channel-changers), The Fate of the Furious (10.5%), and NCIS: Los Angeles.