‘The Last of Us’ Finale Increased Viewership Despite Oscars; Will Disney Stream Ceremony to Avoid Competition?

There’s no way around it: “The Last of Us” has been a huge success for HBO and HBO Max. The Season 1 finale of the series drew 8.2 million viewers on Sunday, March 12, an increase of 100,000 over the 8.1M who watched the penultimate episode the week before.

That means that “The Last of Us” saw an increase in audience numbers every single week that it aired. Its numbers over this past weekend were especially impressive considering that it was up against the 95th Annual Academy Awards on ABC, widely considered the most prestigious entertainment award ceremony in the world. It’s not as if the Oscars telecast was hurting for viewers this year either. The awards ceremony saw 18.7 million viewers tune in, a far cry from the fewer than 10 million the ceremony garnered just two short years ago. The Grammys also saw a rebound in viewers in 2023, though the Golden Globes remained flat and the Emmy Awards saw its audience decline, according to data from Nielsen and charted by Axios.

Although the Academy Awards drew 10 million more viewers than “The Last of Us” finale this year, it’s hard to ignore the success of the HBO series. One of the factors that helps HBO shows garner more viewers than their competitors in the streaming industry is the fact that new episodes for many of their biggest properties are also broadcast on HBO at the same time that they are released for streaming on HBO Max, giving users the choice of how to watch.

That’s a tactic that Disney should strongly consider with the Oscars moving forward. The company made the choice to stream the Academy Awards live on Disney+ in Hungary, India, Indonesia, Norway, and the Philippines in 2023, which marked the first time Disney had ever made the telecast available on its flagship streaming service. Disney+ has streamed the Academy Award nominations announcement in the United States the last two years in a row.

The Golden Globes have already made the switch to a telecast/simultaneous livestream model. In 2023, the first year that the Golden Globes saw a linear broadcast on NBC and livestream on Peacock, NBCUniversal was able to stop the mass exodus of viewers who had seemingly lost interest in the awards.

Netflix is going one step further, becoming the exclusive broadcast home of the Screen Actors Guild awards in 2024. The world’s largest streaming service obviously doesn’t feel the need for a linear partner, though it should be pointed out that unlike Netflix, Disney and NBCU have a ready-made broadcast partner in-house, as does HBO Max.

The door is certainly open for Disney to stream the Oscars more widely, though of course broadcast agreements differ in individual global markets. If Disney does decide to simultaneously livestream the awards in the future, it would be an excellent hedge against top-quality series that air on other outlets such as “The Last of Us.”