American Music Awards Scores Highest Viewership Since 2019; Up 38% From Last Live Broadcast

The American Music Awards, which hadn’t aired a live event since 2022, returned with a bang on Monday night via its new CBS home. The 2025 edition of the AMAs, hosted by Jennifer Lopez, averaged 4.86 million viewers — according to CBS, that was up 38% from the last live AMAs broadcast in November 2022 (which aired on ABC).

Billie Eilish led the telecast, produced by Dick Clark Productions and broadcast from Las Vegas, winning in all seven categories where she was nominated, including Artist of the Year, Album of the Year (“Hit Me Hard and Soft”), Favorite Touring Artist, Favorite Female Pop Artist, Favorite Pop Album (“Hit Me Hard and Soft”), Song of the Year and Favorite Pop Song (both for “Birds of a Feather”).

CBS acquired the AMA broadcast deal in May 2024 (along with the Golden Globes). Last October, CBS aired an introductory one-off in the form of the “American Music Awards 50th Anniversary Special.” Variety parent company PMC owns Dick Clark Productions in a joint venture with Eldridge.

The latest numbers reflect live+same day viewership on CBS plus live streaming on Paramount+. The Eye network noted that the AMAs was the No. 1 broadcast of the night, and also posted growth in key demos vs. the 2022 live broadcast in adults 18-34 (up 91%), adults 18-49 (up 23%) and adults 25-54 (up 16%).

In social and digital media, CBS touted that the AMAs “drove 9.2B potential impressions and 816.6K mentions on social media,” and its social accounts “garnered over 100 million video views within the first 24 hours across Instagram, Tiktok, X and Facebook” (according to Listenfirst). Also, the AMAs Twitch live broadcast viewership “peaked at 205.5k during YouTube Star Kai Cenat’s appearance” according to TwitchTracker.