Hulu Oscars Stream Abruptly Ended Before Best Picture Announcement

Hulu seems to have dropped the ball with its Oscars broadcast after a plethora of issues culminated in the live stream being short. We have lived in a world dominated by streaming platforms for at least a decade now. More and more people have cut the cord and moved away from things like cable in favor of Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, and Hulu. The latter two streamers offer live TV add-ons, making them worthy replacements for cable for the most part. However, that doesn’t mean there haven’t been issues in the streaming age. Of course, entire movies and shows have been erased by streamers due to tax write-offs and live broadcasts aren’t perfect.

Netflix’s Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul fight was borderline unwatchable for many viewers due to non-stop buffering issues and errors. However, streamers are keen on winning people over with more and more live broadcasts. Netflix has secured live broadcasts for WWE, NFL, and other events while other streamers also have their own partnerships for key live events. For the first time ever, Hulu offered to broadcast the Conan O’Brien-hosted Oscars ceremony to all subscribers. Of course, this has been available every year to those with the live TV bundle, but now, it would be streamed to everyone at all tiers making it easier than ever to watch the Oscars.

Hulu’s Oscar Stream Was a Disaster

Unfortunately, that was anything but true. As soon as the Oscars started, Hulu was down and countless users were unable to sign in. Many hoped this would be a temporary issue, but the streamer was down for roughly 2 hours which is over half the runtime of the Oscars. However, Hulu managed to bring the service back online for the second half of the ceremony… until arguably the most important part. The Oscars went to commercial break right after announcing Sean Baker as the winner of Best Director and was expected to return to announce the final two categories: Best Actress and Best Picture, the biggest award of the entire show.

For those watching live on Hulu, the stream was cut off right after Baker finished his acceptance speech. Viewers were greeted with an unfortunate message that informed them that the stream was over, meaning they wouldn’t get to watch the Best Picture announcement live.

“Thank you for watching! This live event has now ended,” read the message. “You may exit playback and select something else to watch.”

Naturally, Hulu viewers were furious that the Oscars stream was ended prematurely. While some viewers reported that they were able to get back to the stream, others (myself included) couldn’t get it to work. Anora was crowned as the Best Picture winner before Hulu could get the stream working again. So, needless to say, Hulu’s live stream of the Oscars was a failed experiment. Prior to the show, there were rumblings that Netflix is in talks to host the Oscars in future years. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, but Hulu’s fumbling of the situation has certainly made it a lot less likely that they will get to stream the event next year. There have been a lot of Best Picture upsets at the Oscars in years past, but this is certainly a new one.