Here's How To Watch And Stream The Oscars So You Don't Miss A Thing
It's a big night!
The Oscars are the pinnacle ceremony of awards season and are commonly referred to as “Hollywood’s biggest night.” But Hollywood’s big night has been shrinking over the last decade, and the 2021 Academy Awards were the lowest-rated in history. So, the ceremony has done a lot of retooling in hopes people will tune in this year. Here’s how to watch and stream the 2022 Oscars to check out the new and improved version of the ceremony.
Currently, the Academy Awards are under a long-term contract with broadcast network ABC to exclusively air the ceremony live, which is good through 2028. (For those wondering “why 2028?”, it’s the Oscars’ centennial anniversary, marking 100 years since the beginning of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and the ceremony.) Those rights also include exclusive access to the red carpet for the last half hour before the ceremony.
The red carpet arrivals begin on Sunday, March 27, at 5 p.m. ET, when coverage will begin on channels devoted to celebrity watching like E!. ABC’s official Oscars Red Carpet Show, hosted this year by Vanessa Hudgens, Terrence J, and Brandon Maxwell, begins at 6:30 p.m. ET when the A-listers start to arrive in earnest. ABC’s exclusive coverage then kicks in at 7:30 p.m. ET, so those watching on another network will have to switch over to ABC for the last half hour. By that point, most arrivals will be inside the theater, watching the early categories being given out, so much of the final half hour of red carpet coverage may be pre-taped.
The televised ceremony begins at 8 p.m. ET and is supposed to end at 11 p.m. ET, but is famous for running late. (The 74th Academy Awards, which aired in 2002, currently holds the record for the longest Oscar ceremony ever, clocking in at four hours and 23 minutes.) The new changes to 2022’s show, including cutting eight categories from the main broadcast, will hopefully mitigate this trend.
Viewers merely need to turn to their local ABC station to watch the official red carpet and ceremony, using either cable or their digital antenna, or use their TV service login to access the show via ABC.com or the ABC app. Those who use YouTube TV, Hulu+ Live TV, Sling, or other cable replacements can also tune into ABC via whichever service they use.
As for streaming access, Hulu is contracted to get first streaming rights for all of ABC’s programming. The awards ceremony will begin streaming for all Hulu subscribers at 12:01 a.m. ET Monday, March 28. In a sign of how confident the Academy is that the Oscars will end relatively on time this year, there are no preparations to delay the streaming broadcast if the actual ceremony isn’t over by that time.
To recap: The 94th Annual Academy Awards will be held on Sunday, March 27, 2022. Red carpet coverage begins on E! at 5 p.m. ET; the official Oscars Red Carpet Show airs at 6:30 p.m. ET on ABC. The ceremony will be broadcast live starting at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and stream on Hulu the next day.
