CMT Music Awards Reach Biggest Audience Yet With Five Percent Ratings Leap
Ratings for the 2023 CMT Music Awards — which aired Sunday, April 2 — are up five percent from last year, Paramount reports. A total of 5.43 million viewers tuned in for the three-hour, fan-voted awards show, making for the program's biggest audience yet.
For comparison, the show brought in 5.16 million viewers in 2022.
The event was also live streamed on Paramount+, and it was the network's most-streamed event of the night, boasting a 16 percent bump from last year. As of Monday (April 3), the out-of-home viewings were projected to bring the total viewership up to 5.68 million viewers.
The 2023 CMT Music Awards also won big on social media, garnering 2.6 billion potential social impressions (last year's social impression number was 2.5 billion). The show's hashtag, #CMTAwards, also trended within the Top 10 on Twitter the night of the event.
This was the second year the CMT Music Awards aired on CBS after moving from its former home of CMT, where it had aired since 2001. This year's show was the second most-watched awards show within the past year on CBS, following the 65th Annual Grammy Awards.
CMT will air the CMT Music Awards Extended Cut, featuring 30 more minutes of performances and content, on Thursday (April 6) at 8PM ET.
The 2023 CMT Music Awards were hosted by Kane Brown and Kelsea Ballerini and featured performances from some of country's biggest stars, including Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton, Carly Pearce, Cody Johnson, Jelly Roll and more. The show also featured collaborations from Pearce and Gwen Stefani, Darius Rucker and the Black Crows and Alanis Morissette with Lainey Wilson, Ingrid Andress, Mordan Wade and Madeline Edwards, among others. Tributes to Stevie Ray Vaughn and Lynyrd Skynyrd were also included on the show.
Brown and his wife Katelyn Brown took home the top honor of the night, Video of the Year, for their "Thank God" video. Female Video was awarded to Wilson for "Heart Like a Truck" and Jelly Roll took home Male Video for his "Son of a Sinner" music video.
Shania Twain also received special recognition when she was honored with the CMT Equal Play Award.