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It’s a familiar story to many people: You have a last minute urge to watch the Academy Awards live as they’re happening, but you don’t have a cable subscription that’ll let you watch live on ABC. What’s the solution? Where is it even streaming these days? Starting in 2029, there’s going to be an answer to that question — and it’ll impact viewers around the world.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has stunned the television industry by announcing a multi-year deal with YouTube that gives the streamer the exclusive global rights to broadcast the Oscars, starting in 2029 and running through 2033. The deal doesn’t just include the ceremony itself; it also includes red carpet coverage, behind-the-scenes footage, and everything else connected to the annual event that celebrates everything good about the movie industry… which extends beyond the annual event, it turns out.

“We are thrilled to enter into a multifaceted global partnership with YouTube to be the future home of the Oscars and our year-round Academy programming,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Lynette Howell Taylor said in a joint statement released to coincide with the announcement. “The Academy is an international organization, and this partnership will allow us to expand access to the work of the Academy to the largest worldwide audience possible — which will be beneficial for our Academy members and the film community.”

Let's all wonder together what kind of "year-round Academy programming" might mean, while we also wonder what a YouTube version of the Academy Awards could look like, freed of the need for network ad breaks and ABC's input for programming.

The new deal brings an end to the Academy’s long-standing deal with ABC to broadcast the Awards in the US, which has been in place since 1976. (The network also broadcast the ceremony from 1961 through 1971, before NBC took over for five years.) In its own statement, ABC announced, “ABC has been the proud home to The Oscars for more than half a century. We look forward to the next three telecasts, including the show’s centennial celebration in 2028, and wish the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences continued success.”

The move to YouTube frees up the format of the broadcast considerably, including removing the need for commercial breaks. At this point, it’s unclear quite what this will mean for the Oscars post-2028, but one thing is clear: at least everyone will know how to watch it, for once.

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