The “VMAs” on CBS rose to a six-year audience high.
CBS
The 2025 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), hosted by LL Cool J, delivered competitive numbers on CBS despite stiff competition from NBC’s Sunday Night Football (Ravens vs. Bills). Airing September 7, the telecast drew just over 5.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen data – the largest VMA audience since 2019 and a 42 percent increase from last year’s 3.91 million viewers across MTV and other Paramount networks.
The takeaway: broadcast television is far from dead, no matter how many reports suggest otherwise.
The VMAs also scored a few other milestones: it was the most-watched entertainment special on CBS since the Grammy Awards in February and the third-largest live-streamed entertainment event of the year on Paramount+, trailing only the Grammys and the Golden Globes.
Fan engagement hit record highs as well. The 2025 VMAs voting campaign generated an unprecedented 2.5 billion global votes, more than doubling last year’s tally, according to Internal data via Telescope (from Aug. 5-Sept. 5, 2025).
Social Media Milestone
The VMAs set new records as the most-viewed and most-engaged edition in the show’s history, generating 1 billion video views (up 21 percent) and more than 81 million engagements (up 6 percent) across official accounts. Hashtag buzz was equally strong: #VMAs ranked No. 1 on X in the U.S. for three straight hours and remained in the top 10 for nine hours, while #VMA trended No. 1 worldwide for four consecutive hours and hit the top spot in 12 countries.