The Oscars Streamed Live on Hulu For the First Time Ever and It Was Kind of a Disaster
In addition to airing on ABC, the 97th Oscars streamed live on Hulu last night, marking a first for Hollywood’s premier award ceremony.
Unfortunately for Disney, things did not go as planned.
The troubles began right from the jump, as Cynthia Erivo and Arania Grrande took to the stage to perform “Defying Gravity” from Wicked. Suddenly, numerous Hulu users reported difficulties logging into their account.
Photo: Hulu
“Unable to log in?” an error message asked. “We’re on it! Our team is currently investigating and we hope to have things back up and running soon. Thank you for your patience!”
The Issue Was Resolved Just After 9 PM ET
Amid a flood of complaints on social media, the Hulu tech team worked to resolve the issues. Unfortunately, it was after 9 PM ET by the time all users were successfully able to log in.
“The issue is now resolved and impacted users are able to log in,” Hulu said in a statement. “There was a technical issue with a login system which we identified and fixed.”
Photo: Disney
By this point, half of the ceremony had aired.
An Early Ending
Just when everything seemed to be back on track for Hulu, disaster struck again.
This time, numerous users saw the stream cut off early. Instead of watching the presentation of the night’s biggest awards, including Best Actress and Best Film, viewers saw a thank you message from Hulu.
So @hulu just cut the #Oscars feed and won’t allow any playback. C’mon, Disney. What’re you doing?! pic.twitter.com/BoICVLqBwb
— Brandon Katz (@Great_Katzby) March 3, 2025
After the difficult evening, Disney released an apologetic statement to Deadline.
“This evening, we experienced technical and live stream issues on Hulu which impacted some Oscars viewers,” they said.
“We apologize for the experience and will make a full replay of the event available as soon as possible.”
The State of Disney Streaming
As previously noted, this was the first year the Oscars streamed live on Hulu.
In an ever-changing media environment, Disney has shown the foresight and flexibility to embrace multiple channels of distribution to reach as many viewers as possible. This philosophy has served the company well.
Photo: Disney
What has become clear, however, is that Disney’s streaming infrastructure is still a work in progress. Bob Iger has previously been open about the gap between Disney and Netflix regarding back-end infrastructure.
Photo: Disney
While the company has reportedly made numerous inroads and continues to upgrade, improve, and solidify its streaming technology, as last night showed, there is still a way to go.
