CBS and AMAs Reach 5-Year Deal as Live Events Strike a Chord With Viewers

The American Music Awards and CBS don’t need to miss a beat.Following the AMAs’ return to CBS in 2025, CBS and Dick Clark Productions (DCP) are saying a brand new 5-year partnership to maintain the present on the community and Paramount+, with the settlement kicking in for the 52nd AMAs in Could 2026, reside from Las Vegas.The American Music Awards have gone on a rollercoaster the previous couple of years. After airing on ABC in 2022, the present didn’t make it again to broadcast till CBS’s 2025 exhibiting. The ceremony was absent for 2023, and 2024 introduced a fiftieth anniversary particular, which CBS aired in October.Nevertheless, CBS experiences that the 2025 present, hosted by Jennifer Lopez, introduced “over 10 million distinctive viewers” throughout its premiere on Memorial Day, Monday, Could 26, and thru encores on MTV, CMT, and BET within the days after. The community reported the biggest viewers for the present since 2019, which it says was up 38% from the 2022 airing on ABC. The announcement additional showcases the media trade’s push in the direction of reside occasions, which have change into much more necessary within the TV upfront, together with the continued rise in sports activities.Talking to ADWEEK in Could, Paramount adverts chief John Halley famous the “energy of reside tentpoles” amid occasions of financial uncertainty.“Sports activities and tentpole investments stay priorities,” Halley stated. “They’re utilized by manufacturers to remain culturally related, even via tougher durations, particularly with Gen Z and Millennial audiences.”Along with serving to manufacturers keep culturally related, reside award exhibits have continued to carry out within the rankings regardless of the continued decline of linear TV.In March, Disney’s broadcast of the 97th Oscars reached a five-year excessive, rising to 19.7 million viewers with the added help of streaming on Hulu. And although CBS’s most up-to-date broadcast of the Grammys was down greater than 1 million viewers 12 months over 12 months, it nonetheless averaged 15.4 million.See the 2026 American Music Awards reside from Las Vegas on Memorial Day Weekend, 2026, airing on CBS and Paramount+.