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It’s Oscar (shopping) season. As we are closing the book on the 2025 Oscars, the Academy is looking ahead to the 2029 edition of the awards show and beyond. Deadline has confirmed with sources that the Academy’s exclusive negotiating window with the Oscars’ longtime broadcaster, ABC, has lapsed, and the organization is expected to shop the marquee ceremony to other networks and platforms.
Reps for the Academy and ABC declined comment on the news, first reported by Bloomberg.
According to sources, a license fee increase sought by the Academy is the main reason the two sides are coming out of the exclusive negotiating period without a new deal. Last time around, ABC announced a new eight-year agreement with the Academy in August 2016, three and a half years before the end of the previous deal, which was set to expire after the 2020 Oscars.
It has been widely reported that, under that eight-year pact, which is up in 2028, ABC has been paying about $100 million a year for the show. While the Oscars ratings still formidable, drawing 19.5 million Live+Same Day viewers last year, they are about half of what the ceremony was getting in the 1990s, 2000s an early 2010s.
The Oscars was the last major awards telecast to embrace live streaming with a simulcast on Hulu this year, which was off to a bumpy start with quite a few glitches.
And while ABC and the Academy have been good partners for 50 years — the Oscars has been on the network since 1976 after a couple of back-and-forth switches between ABC and NBC early on — there also has been some tension. The network has tried to change the format of the telecast in pursuit of bigger ratings by focusing on popular categories and taking some below-the-line fields out of the live telecast, moves which have been met with resistance. Steeped in tradition, the Oscars have proved to not as susceptible to change as the Grammys’ main telecast for example, which has transformed into largely a live concert.
According to sources, ABC would like to keep the Oscars but at a price. Which is what recently happened with the Grammys and their home of more than 50 years, CBS. The Recording Academy also was seeking a license fee increase, took the Grammys on the open market and eventually landed at Disney via a longterm deal with ABC, Hulu and Disney+. According to Bloomberg, the pact is worth $70M a year.
For Disney, it was not Oscars or Grammys, I hear, and the company is still open to retaining the Oscars if another suitor does not snatch the show with a big offer. Deep-pocketed platforms with global reach and live event experience include Netflix and Amazon through the latter may prove a controversial choice with its commitment to keeping its movies exclusive to streaming.
“Keep making movies for the big screen,” Anora filmmaker Sean Baker urged while accepting the Oscar for Best Directing last night as he spoke of moviegoing as “a communal experience you simply don’t get at home.”
That is a sentiment shared by many of Hollywood’s heavy hitters.
Meanwhile, Anora‘s Oscar sweep exemplifies the ascend of indies with modest box-office at the Academy Awards (Anora is among the lowest grossing movies ever to win Best Picture), which impacts rating.
It’s been a little bit of musical chairs with the three biggest awards shows. The Grammys are leaving longtime home at CBS for Disney/ABC, the Golden Globes did the same, moving from longtime home NBC to CBS. Following the pattern, would the Oscars maybe go from ABC to NBC/Comcast?
“This is something we will get into when the time comes,” an Academy source told Deadline about the upcoming negotiations with TV outlets for a new home.
