TV Ratings: Golden Globes Dip for Second Straight Year

Fran Drescher and Nikki Glaser during Glaser’s ‘Marty Supreme’-inspired “Golden” moment at the 2026 Golden Globes. Rich Polk/2026GG

The audience for the 2026 Golden Globes fell off a bit year to year.

The awards averaged 8.66 million viewers for CBS Sunday, based on final same-day Nielsen figures (including the ratings service’s big data component). That’s off by about 7 percent from the 9.27 million viewers for the 2025 Globes (CBS, which was in a contract dispute with Nielsen a year ago, cited 10.1 million viewers for last year’s telecast from VideoAmp).

Sunday’s show also marked the second straight small decline for the Globes. The awards’ first year on CBS in 2024 drew 9.47 million viewers, which dipped to 9.27 million last year. Last year’s number does not include the big data component of the ratings, which Nielsen rolled out across its products at the start of the 2025-26 season. (All three of CBS’ broadcasts have come in above the final two years of the Globes’ run on NBC.)

Unlike the past two years, CBS did not have a late-afternoon NFL game serving as a lead-in for the Golden Globes. The awards aired opposite a wild card playoff game on NBC that drew nearly 29 million cross-platform viewers. Last year’s awards ran against the NFL’s regular season finale, which had a similar all-in audience of about 28.5 million.

On the plus side, the Globes had a larger social media footprint compared to last year: The show had 42 million social interactions, up 5 percent year to year to its highest level ever. Host Nikki Glaser’s opening monologue drew some 14 million views across social platforms in the 36 hours after the awards.

Entertainment Tonight’s red carpet show preceding the awards drew 3.4 million viewers.

Golden Globes producer Dick Clark Productions is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and Eldridge that also owns The Hollywood Reporter.

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