Hulu subscribers watching the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday evening had been outraged when the streaming service ended its broadcast earlier than the present was really over. Viewers noticed a “thanks for watching” message that falsely claimed “the reside occasion has now ended” — even if the Greatest Actress and Greatest Image Oscars had been nonetheless to come back. Social media platforms and the Hulu subreddit instantly lit up with complaints and threats of cancellation.
It turned out to be a tough evening for the Disney-owned service. A couple of hours earlier, Hulu acknowledged that some clients had been having points logging in: that drawback was rectified barely earlier than 9PM ET. However shutting off the reside stream forward of the night’s largest prizes was an much more embarrassing blunder.
The error got here all the way down to scheduling: Hulu gave the Oscars a set ending time of 10:32PM. That’s precisely when viewers began getting kicked out of the stream. However as ordinary, a number of acceptance speeches ran lengthy on Sunday evening, and Hulu’s chosen cutoff time didn’t permit sufficient wiggle room for an often-unpredictable broadcast.
“This night, we skilled technical and reside stream points on Hulu which impacted some Oscars viewers,” Disney mentioned in a press release offered by spokesperson Dorothy Ballowe. “We apologize for the expertise and can make a full replay of the occasion obtainable as quickly as doable.”
I don’t know the way we’re nonetheless having these streaming mishaps in 2025 — particularly from the corporate that owns the rights to the Oscars telecast, the community it was carried on, and the streaming service in query — however right here we’re. Cable viewers and people watching with a TV antenna had been spared from the technical difficulties. Clients streaming via Hulu with Stay TV had been additionally unaffected since they had been seeing the reside, linear ABC feed.
Replace, March third 12:20AM: The article has been up to date with remark from Disney.
