TV Ratings for Tony Awards 2025 Highest Since 2019; Streaming Audience Biggest Ever

The 78th Annual Tony Awards—hosted by Tony winner Cynthia Erivo on CBS, from 8 PM-11:10 PM ET—delivered its largest broadcast audience since pre-pandemic 2019 and its largest streaming audience ever, for those watching on Paramount+.

Broadway's biggest night of the year, held at Radio City Music Hall, was watched on CBS by an average of 4.85 million viewers, up 38% from last year. The celebration of Broadway theatre was also the No. 1 non-sports program of the evening, delivering its best year-over-year gains since 2018.

In key demographics, viewers ages 25-54 were up 91% from last year, ages 18-49 up 107%, and ages 18-34 up an impressive 147%. In terms of social media, there were 5.2 billion potential impressions with 161.9K mentions, an increase of, respectively, 55% and 75% from 2024.

On Paramount+, the audience was up a whopping 208%.

The dramatic ratings increase follows the recent news that Broadway enjoyed its highest-grossing season ever for 2024-2025, with very high in-person attendance. So it's not just in New York—there seems to be a growing interest in theatre nationally.

Watch host Erivo, the lead of the upcoming Wicked: For Good, dazzle the crowd in her Tony opening number here.

READ: Tony Awards 2025: The Full List of Winners

Maybe Happy Ending and Purpose took the evening's biggest titles as Best Musical and Play, respectively, with the former emerging as the most Tony-winning production of the season, with six wins. Revival awards went to Sunset Blvd. and Eureka Day.

The ever-competitive Leading Actress in a Musical category ended up going to Sunset Blvd. star Nicole Scherzinger, with Maybe Happy Ending's Darren Criss taking Leading Actor in a Musical, and The Picture of Dorian Gray's Sarah Snook and Oh, Mary! writer and star Cole Escola taking the Leading Actress and Actor (respectively) in a Play categories.

Beyond honoring the artistry happening on and offstage on Broadway, The Tony Awards exist primarily to serve as a nationwide marketing tool. A Best Musical win can sell a great number of tickets, but so can performances during the broadcast irrespective of how award wins shake out. To that end, the usefulness of the Tonys extends beyond the live broadcast itself. Being nominated is used as a mechanism to get appearances on almost all major morning and late-night shows, and even those who did not watch the ceremony itself are likely to have seen highlights on news broadcasts that night and the morning after.

Watch all the performances from the 2025 Tony Awards here, and click here for the acceptance speeches. Hamilton Tony winner Renée Elise Goldsberry and 2025 Tony winner Darren Criss also co-hosted Tony Awards: Act One on PlutoTV prior to the CBS telecast.

Visit �뵺��.com/Tonys for more coverage from Broadway's biggest night.