DiCaprio, Tarantino, and Zendaya: Oscars Flee TV for Streaming Stardom

Max Sterling, 12/29/2025 Hollywood’s crown jewel ditches primetime for prime streaming: the Oscars swap ABC’s old-school glamour for YouTube’s global chaos, hoping to stay relevant in an era where award shows and cat videos now share the same algorithm. Prestige, meet disruption—just don’t forget to like, subscribe, and skip ad.

This isn’t just some casual migration. ABC, until recently, paid a king’s ransom for Oscars broadcast rights—something in the ballpark of $100 million a year, at last tally. For decades, the Oscars sat at the top of the old broadcast pyramid, a velvet-roped affair reserved for the chosen (and often, let’s be honest, a captive) audience. But as the parade of viewers thinned out—many seduced away by Netflix’s relentless suggestion carousel—the question stopped being “Why stay?” and morphed into “Where to next?"

Enter YouTube, that ever-expanding digital bazaar. In a twist equally fit for a scene out of “Sunset Boulevard” or “The Social Network,” the world’s most self-congratulatory spectacle will soon jostle for eyeballs alongside unboxing videos and last night’s late-night monologue recaps. One can almost picture the Academy’s execs huddled around a boardroom, caught somewhere between panic and ambition, suddenly entertaining the prospect of peddling Oscar gold with a side of recommended content.

Prestige, of course, is another story. YouTube’s lineage is crowded with creators who unbox tech gadgets, whisper into microphones, and pull off superhero feats with suburban budgets. It’s a broad church—one where starlets in couture must now rub digital elbows with pranksters and makeup gurus. As one industry editor recently put it, YouTube’s neutral territory—untouched by the competitive frictions that come with the likes of Netflix—makes it the perfect ref. No films to push, no campaigns to run; just the bandwidth to broadcast the whole razzle-dazzle straight to the world.

And what a world it is. For reach, nothing comes close. Send a YouTube link, and suddenly your friend in Mumbai has the same front-row seat as the exec in Manhattan—no cable package or geofencing required. The Oscars has always thrived on exposure: the spectacle demands as many pairs of eyes as sequin threads on those red-carpet gowns. Compared to the slow fade-out of network TV, YouTube’s global sprawl feels less like a gamble and more like survival instinct painted in 4K.

Advertisers, on the other hand, may find themselves in new and unfamiliar territory. Rolex—long-time partner in Oscar-time elegance—now faces a world where the ad break isn’t an assured safe harbor but more like spinning the wheel: will viewers see a luxury watch ad or five seconds of a mobile game pitch before slapping ‘skip’? The old certainties are gone. The new playbook? Still in draft mode—and who knows, perhaps by 2025, we’ll see influencers with gold-plated watches elbowing for that same airtime.

It’s not a solo act, either. As genre showcases like “A Grammy Celebration of Latin Music” pop up on various platforms, it’s obvious the entertainment world is scattering, then coming together again in entirely new configurations—where smartphones and tablets are the nearest possible stage. The ritual-bound, tuxedoed Oscars, in this context, starts to look less like a museum piece and more like a shape-shifter, morphing to fit wherever the audience has wandered.

Some might grumble. For cinephiles steeped in the grandeur of old Hollywood, this move might sting—as if seeing Grauman’s Chinese Theatre refitted for drive-thru popcorn. Yet, trends are unrelenting. The up-and-coming global audience, armed with Wi-Fi and a healthy impatience for scheduled programming, simply expects more. In truth, the Oscars has two options: stream, or slip quietly into irrelevance.

So, here’s the new scene: Hollywood’s ceremony comes ready to stream, meme, and be dissected in real time, by virtually anyone with a screen. There’s something poetic about this transformation, for those willing to squint. The greatest story the Oscars can tell in 2025 isn’t about a single film, but about itself—its capacity to change costumes, rewrite the script, and keep the limelight burning in a world where the next act might be just a screen tap, or possibly, mercifully, a "skip ad" away.

Hollywood’s flashiest gala—the Oscars—seems to have swapped its cufflinks for an Ethernet cable. After nearly 100 years of prime-time tradition spent soaking in golden-hour lighting, the Academy Awards has announced its next act: moving off network TV and onto YouTube. Yes, YouTube—the place more famous for viral skateboarding disasters than for teary thank-you speeches in borrowed diamonds.This isn’t just some casual migration. ABC, until recently, paid a king’s ransom for Oscars broadcast rights—something in the ballpark of $100 million a year, at last tally. For decades, the Oscars sat at the top of the old broadcast pyramid, a velvet-roped affair reserved for the chosen (and often, let’s be honest, a captive) audience. But as the parade of viewers thinned out—many seduced away by Netflix’s relentless suggestion carousel—the question stopped being “Why stay?” and morphed into “Where to next?"Enter YouTube, that ever-expanding digital bazaar. In a twist equally fit for a scene out of “Sunset Boulevard” or “The Social Network,” the world’s most self-congratulatory spectacle will soon jostle for eyeballs alongside unboxing videos and last night’s late-night monologue recaps. One can almost picture the Academy’s execs huddled around a boardroom, caught somewhere between panic and ambition, suddenly entertaining the prospect of peddling Oscar gold with a side of recommended content.Prestige, of course, is another story. YouTube’s lineage is crowded with creators who unbox tech gadgets, whisper into microphones, and pull off superhero feats with suburban budgets. It’s a broad church—one where starlets in couture must now rub digital elbows with pranksters and makeup gurus. As one industry editor recently put it, YouTube’s neutral territory—untouched by the competitive frictions that come with the likes of Netflix—makes it the perfect ref. No films to push, no campaigns to run; just the bandwidth to broadcast the whole razzle-dazzle straight to the world.And what a world it is. For reach, nothing comes close. Send a YouTube link, and suddenly your friend in Mumbai has the same front-row seat as the exec in Manhattan—no cable package or geofencing required. The Oscars has always thrived on exposure: the spectacle demands as many pairs of eyes as sequin threads on those red-carpet gowns. Compared to the slow fade-out of network TV, YouTube’s global sprawl feels less like a gamble and more like survival instinct painted in 4K.Advertisers, on the other hand, may find themselves in new and unfamiliar territory. Rolex—long-time partner in Oscar-time elegance—now faces a world where the ad break isn’t an assured safe harbor but more like spinning the wheel: will viewers see a luxury watch ad or five seconds of a mobile game pitch before slapping ‘skip’? The old certainties are gone. The new playbook? Still in draft mode—and who knows, perhaps by 2025, we’ll see influencers with gold-plated watches elbowing for that same airtime.It’s not a solo act, either. As genre showcases like “A Grammy Celebration of Latin Music” pop up on various platforms, it’s obvious the entertainment world is scattering, then coming together again in entirely new configurations—where smartphones and tablets are the nearest possible stage. The ritual-bound, tuxedoed Oscars, in this context, starts to look less like a museum piece and more like a shape-shifter, morphing to fit wherever the audience has wandered.Some might grumble. For cinephiles steeped in the grandeur of old Hollywood, this move might sting—as if seeing Grauman’s Chinese Theatre refitted for drive-thru popcorn. Yet, trends are unrelenting. The up-and-coming global audience, armed with Wi-Fi and a healthy impatience for scheduled programming, simply expects more. In truth, the Oscars has two options: stream, or slip quietly into irrelevance.So, here’s the new scene: Hollywood’s ceremony comes ready to stream, meme, and be dissected in real time, by virtually anyone with a screen. There’s something poetic about this transformation, for those willing to squint. The greatest story the Oscars can tell in 2025 isn’t about a single film, but about itself—its capacity to change costumes, rewrite the script, and keep the limelight burning in a world where the next act might be just a screen tap, or possibly, mercifully, a "skip ad" away.