The Kennedy Center Honors ratings indicate a drop in viewership this year, with the 2025 telecast averaging 3.01 million viewers, according to a Nielsen report CBS shared with The Washington Post.
One year earlier, the 2024 Kennedy Center Honors reached an all-time ratings low of 4.1 million viewers. In total, the 2025 show decreased in viewership by 26 percent.
This year’s ceremony was hosted by President Donald Trump, where Sylvester Stallone, Kiss, Gloria Gaynor, Michael Crawford and George Strait we honored. During the show, which was taped on Dec. 7, the president predicted that the broadcast would draw in the best ratings yet. He shared a similar sentiment during an event held a day before the Honors were filmed.
“I believe — and I’m gonna make a prediction — this will be the highest-rated show that they’ve ever done, and they’ve gotten some pretty good ratings, but there’s nothing like what’s gonna happen tomorrow night,” Trump said. “We never had a president hosting the awards before. This is a first. I’m sure they’ll give me great reviews, right? You know, they’ll say, ‘He was horrible. He was terrible. It was a horrible situation.’ No, we’ll do fine. I’ve watched some of the people that host. Jimmy Kimmel was horrible, and some of these people, if I can’t beat out Jimmy Kimmel in terms of talent, then I don’t think I should be president.”
Before the show aired on Dec. 23, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he was named host of the Honors “at the request of the Board, and just about everybody else in America.”
“Tell me what you think of my ‘Master of Ceremonies’ abilities,” he wrote. “If really good, would you like me to leave the Presidency in order to make ‘hosting’ a full time job?”
Preliminary ratings had viewership sitting at 2.65 million, though an insider predicted that the final numbers would ultimately deliver a higher total.
The honors aired on CBS and Paramount+ amid news of Trump’s plans to rename the Kennedy Center to The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
“The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees voted unanimously today to name the institution The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” the Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, Roma Daravi, said in a statement at the time. “The unanimous vote recognizes that the current Chairman saved the institution from financial ruin and physical destruction. The new Trump Kennedy Center reflects the unequivocal bipartisan support for America’s cultural center for generations to come.”
The decision has drawn much blowback, including by members of the Kennedy family. It also resulted in musician Chuck Redd dropping out of a planned performance at the Kennedy Center on Christmas Eve. Redd told the Associated Press, “When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert.”
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