TV Ratings: VMAs Hit Four-Year Viewer High

Hollywood Gossip
2 min readSep 13, 2024

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Wednesday’s show (including encores) topped 4 million viewers for the first time since 2020.

BY RICK PORTER, Thursday, 12, 2024.

The 2024 MTV Video Music Awards scored its biggest audience in four years.

Wednesday’s show, which included a record fifth video of the year win for Taylor Swift, averaged 4.09 million viewers across MTV, 11 other Paramount-owned cable channels and UniMas. That’s an 8 percent gain over the 2023 VMAs (3.78 million viewers) and the best total for the VMAs since 2020; figures for both years include the main show, preshow and encore airings.

The primary telecast improved by a larger margin, averaging 3.11 million viewers across the 13 channels — up 25 percent from 2.49 million a year ago.

MTV also says the 2024 VMAs recorded 66.7 million social interactions worldwide, per Talkwalker’s Social Content Ratings. That’s an all-time record for an entertainment telecast and second among all TV programs of all time, behind only Tuesday’s presidential debate. MTV-owned social accounts also recorded 829 million video views for the VMAs (what constitutes a “view” varies by platform, from a second or two on TikTok and Instagram to 30 seconds on YouTube). That’s an 18 percent gain over the 2023 show.

After hitting a low of 2.56 million viewers in 2021, the on-air audience for the VMAs simulcast has grown for three consecutive years. Maybe not entirely coincidentally, Swift has been a big presence on all three shows, winning video of the year each time.

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