The 97th Academy Awards made history this year by streaming live on Hulu, but thousands of viewers encountered issues accessing the broadcast. As the event aired on ABC and Hulu (owned by Disney), reports of login failures and stream disruptions began surfacing, leaving many frustrated especially as the Best Picture winner was about to be announced.
According to Downdetector, more than 34,000 Hulu users reported streaming problems by 4:28 p.m. PT. The Hulu Support team quickly addressed the issue on X (formerly Twitter) at 4:39 p.m. PT, acknowledging the login failures and assuring users that a fix was in progress. Later, at 5:48 p.m. PT, Hulu updated subscribers, stating that their technical team had identified the problem and users should be able to log in again soon.
However, another unexpected issue arose at 7:40 p.m. PT, just before “Anora” was announced as Best Picture. Many Hulu users received a message saying, “the live event has now ended.” This happened because Hulu’s scheduling system had set the stream to end at 7:32 p.m. PT, in line with the planned Oscars runtime. But as is common, the show ran longer than expected, cutting off the stream for some viewers before the event concluded.
A Disney spokesperson later responded to media inquiries, stating, “This evening, we experienced technical and live stream issues on Hulu which impacted some Oscars viewers. We apologize for the experience and will make a full replay of the event available as soon as possible.”
Throughout the evening, users reported various issues:
- Some couldn’t log in to Hulu at all.
- Others saw blank screens when trying to access the live event.
- Some were met with error messages, such as “this content isn’t available in your location” or “this isn’t included in your current subscription.”
The move to stream the Oscars on Hulu was originally intended to broaden the event’s audience, marking the first time the Academy Awards were available on a major streaming service. Hulu confirmed that a full replay of the event would be available starting Monday, March 3 for subscribers. As of the end of 2024, Hulu had 53.6 million subscribers, adding 1.6 million users in the last quarter of the year. Despite the positive growth, this Oscars streaming mishap highlights the technical challenges streaming platforms face when broadcasting major live events.