How To Watch The 2023 Oscars Ceremony

It's that time of year again. Sunday, March 12, 2023, is the 95th Academy Awards, airing from 8:00 to 11:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (or 5:00 to 8:00 PM Pacific Standard Time in Los Angeles, where the ceremony is being held). The ceremony will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, who previously hosted the 89th Academy Awards in 2017.

As has been the case since 1976, the Oscars are being broadcast on American television by ABC. Online, they can be watched subscription-free via ABC's website and app. Other options include Hulu (both ABC and Hulu are owned by Disney), DirecTV Stream, and FuboTV.

In Canada, the Oscars will be aired on CTV, the country's largest private television network. As with ABC, Canadian viewers can also tune in via CTV's website and mobile app. In the UK, Sky is broadcasting the Oscars (the local timezone to watch there is 1:00 to 4:00 AM). The specific options to watch there will be the free channels Sky News and Sky Arts, subscription channel Sky Showcase, and Sky Cinema Oscars, which streams/broadcasts the ceremony itself and plenty of previous Academy Award-winning movies.

Speaking of Oscar-winning movies, there's a strong line-up of nominees this year. The golden crown, Best Picture, has 10 nominees, but it's up in the air which will emerge victorious. In Oscar lead-up ceremonies, there wasn't a consensus pick: "The Fabelmans" won at the Golden Globes for Best Drama while "Banshees of Inisherin" took the Comedy category. "All Quiet on the Western Front" prevailed at the BAFTAs, and "Everything Everywhere All At Once" won at the Critics' Choice Awards. Will it be one of these four, or something else entirely?

The lead acting categories seem more foregone. For her seismic performance in "TÁR," Cate Blanchett won the Best Actress analog awards at all the aforementioned ceremonies. Austin Butler seems to be the Best Actor favorite for "Elvis" after winning at the BAFTAs and Golden Globes; not bad for a former Disney kid. If there will be an upset, it'll be Michelle Yeoh for "Everything Everywhere All At Once" (she won Best Actress in a Comedy at the Globes) and Brendan Fraser for "The Whale" (he won at the Critics Choice Awards — plus, Hollywood loves comeback stories and "empathetic" stories about the disabled). And who knows, Andrea Riseborough's surprise 2023 Oscar nomination could prove to go all the way.

But will people tune in to see these wins? Oscar viewing has been in decline — the 2021 ceremony brought an all-time low of only 10 million viewers, believed to be caused by a COVID-19-prompted rescheduling. 2022 reversed course, attracting 15 million viewers but still far below the 23.6 million who watched in 2020. Will Smith slapping Chris Rock on stage doubtlessly brought in viewers — there's no such thing as bad publicity — but with the new "crisis team," such an event is unlikely to transpire again this time. If viewership numbers fall again, the Academy will need a new hook beyond actors assaulting each other.