Overall, I liked this year’s Oscars ceremony. It went on for way too long, but at least there weren’t any major production hiccups. All of the correct award recipients were announced and the only odd moment of the evening was the Best Original Song winners trying to start a singalong.
Unfortunately, the same problem-free production can’t be said about the viewing side. For the first time ever, the Academy Awards aired live on Hulu and any other streaming service that carried ABC. While the show aired without issue on most of those platforms, Hulu completely sh-t the bed. Their live steam glitched multiple times, including during the opening performance by Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo and while Conan O’Brien was doing his opening monologue. Those early glitches reportedly lasted for 40 minutes before they were fixed. Then, just as Emma Stone was about to announce this year’s Best Actress winner, Hulu’s live feed abruptly ended. This caused viewers to not only miss that award, but also the winner of Best Picture.
Hulu’s big night at the 2025 Oscars was cut short on Sunday evening for many viewers when the streamer’s red carpet coverage of Hollywood’s biggest night was followed by glitches in the stream of the broadcast of the ceremony, leaving its paying customers in the dark for more than two hours as the Academy Awards took place in Los Angeles — and then at the ceremony’s end, when Hulu’s event cut off early.
For the first time, the Academy Awards ceremony was streamed live on Hulu. Since the ceremony is broadcast on ABC, cord-cutters could watch it live on any live TV streaming service that carries ABC, including Hulu + Live TV, Sling, Fubo and DirecTV Stream. Yet many Hulu subscribers couldn’t watch all of the Oscars action unfold as the beginning of this year’s ceremony was beset with major interruptions, causing viewers to miss out on Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande’s live Wicked performances and Conan O’Brien’s opening monologue.
Hulu was able to fix that glitch, which a representative told The Hollywood Reporter around 6:15 p.m. PT — more than two hours into the Oscars ceremony — was the result of the technician issue that at that point had been resolved; all impacted Hulu users were able to log in at that point, the rep stated. The rep cited a technical matter with Hulu’s login system as the cause of the widespread issue.
However, that was not the end of Hulu’s live stream meltdown on Sunday. The event cut off early for some subscription video-on-demand users, who then missed the announcement of the best actress and best picture winners. What they got was an onscreen message from Hulu thanking viewers for watching the program and indicating that it had ended.
During the glitches at the top of the show, annoyed and perplexed Hulu subscribers were quick to take to X to complain about the matter. One user pointed out that Hulu is prone to having issues when it comes to live events streaming on the platform.
“Reminder Hulu servers can’t handle live events,” X user @DogeCoinAud wrote in response to Hulu’s post about best actor nominee Sebastian Stan, which read, “Reminder that this always was and forever will be a Sebastain STAN account,” with the actor’s name misspelled.
The company was quick to catch on to the early hiccups and responded on social media to the technical issues. Around 4:45 p.m. PT, Disney+ Help’s account posted on X that users having trouble streaming the Oscars broadcast should restart their Hulu+ or other Hulu application or check for app updates.
“@DisneyPlusHelp Thank you for reaching out! The 97th Oscars will be broadcast live on ABC-TV and are streaming on Hulu starting at 7 p.m. ET / 3 p.m. PT. If you are having trouble accessing it, try restarting your app or checking for updates. Let us know if you need further assistance!@DisneyPlusHelp Thank you for reaching out!”
THR has learned that the early end of Hulu’s Oscars stream resulted from a scheduling system issue, according to a source familiar with the matter.
It sounds like when Hulu’s programmers scheduled the broadcast to stream live, they assumed that it would end on time, and only left a 15 minute buffer in case it ran over. Ha, rookie mistake! Even with the (thankfully) earlier start time, you always assume that an awards show is going to go way over. This really sucked for everyone who was watching the Hulu stream, especially for those who were looking forward to Erivo and Grande’s wonderful opening performance or were hosting Oscar parties and invested in the outcomes of each race. Poor Kismet’s Hulu stream cut out, so she missed the ending of the show, too. I watched it on YouTube TV, and if this had happened to me, I would have been so mad.
If these big streaming services are going to continue to raise their rates, the least they can do is figure their sh-t out and provide the service people are paying for. For example, Tubi, which is free, streamed the Super Bowl with only mild buffering issues. Anyway, it’s kind of funny that Hulu had so many issues during a movie awards show just after Anora director Sean Baker gave a “battle cry” about how streaming services are killing the movie-going experience. They could not have timed it better if they tried.
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