2024 Golden Globes ratings up 50% from 2023

Hollywood loves a good comeback story, and the Golden Globes just delivered one.

The 2024 Golden Globe Awards, which aired live on CBS on Sunday (January 7), averaged 9.4 million viewers, up 50% from last year. The show achieved its biggest audience since 2020, according to Nielsen's time zone-adjusted national flash ratings, including out-of-home ratings, for Sunday.

The Hollywood Party of the Year – the phrase has been trademarked – was Sunday's most-watched entertainment program.

Hosted by comedian Jo Koy, the Globes reached the largest live streaming audience for an awards show on Paramount+ and other CBS platforms since the 65th annual Grammy Awards in February 2023.

It was the second-biggest live-streamed CBS special on Paramount+ ever in terms of AMAs (average audience) and reach.

On social media, the Golden Globes dominated Sunday night with nearly 30 billion potential impressions, ranking as the night's No. 1 program based on total interactions.

Three years ago, the Globes were rocked by scandal over the organization's lack of diversity and ethical lapses. It was so bad that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who presented that year for the fourth time, openly criticized the show while hosting the show. Fei said, “We all know awards are stupid. The thing is, even with silly things, participation is important, and there are no black members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. … You have to change that.”

Viewership for the 2021 show plummeted, from 18.32 million viewers in 2020 to just 6.91 million viewers. This was the first time the show's ratings had fallen below 14 million viewers since it moved from TBS to NBC in 1996. It's unclear whether it was the controversy or the disruptive effect of the pandemic, but ratings were down, even and in the hands of top hosts like Fey and Poehler.

Two years ago, the Golden Globes were held as a private dinner, without television or streaming. It looked like the show, which started in 1944, might be too damaged to ever recover. But the idea of the show – a fun, laid-back event where seemingly every major movie and TV (and sometimes music) star is packed into a ballroom – was just too good for Hollywood to pass up.

The show returned to NBC last year, but only reached 6.3 million viewers. This year it moved to CBS for a show that lived up to its old reputation as the Hollywood party of the year, with A-listers like Meryl, Oprah, Taylor and Bruce in attendance.

The champagne that flowed so freely last night in the Grand Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, is flowing again at the Golden Globes and CBS offices. The show seems to have survived her death.

Penske Media Corporation, Billboard's parent company, co-owns dick clark producers and has a partnership with Eldridge.