2023 ACM Awards Reports 87% Year-Over-Year Audience Growth

The 2023 Academy of Country Music Awards reports 87% year-over-year audience growth, as compared to 2022. The show also saw record increases in viewership and interactions across its owned-and-operated sites and social media platforms, as well as Harmony, Penske Media’s proprietary livestreaming platform.

The 2023 Academy of Country Music Awards was the No. 1 program across all social media platforms for TV and streaming on May 11 (excluding sports), according to Talkwalker, which monitors social content ratings.

This year’s ACM Awards amassed 60.6 million video views across the ACM’s official Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok from May 11 through May 22, marking a record increase of 94% in year-over-year social media views, per ListenFirst.

The Official ACM Awards Red Carpet Show garnered 3.2 million live and video-on-demand views in the first 24 hours on Harmony, which livestreams PMC’s portfolio of live entertainment shows and industry experiences across all of Penske Media’s owned and operated websites and PMC social media accounts.

As of June 2, there are more than 7.1 million views across all 18 full show performances on ACM Award performers’ YouTube channels since May 12.

Keith Urban, Ed Sheeran with Luke Combs, Lainey Wilson and Miranda Lambert all saw streaming increases of 200% or more following live performances on the ACM Awards stage. 

Urban’s performance of his 2018 song “Texas Time” — in honor of the ACM Awards’ return to Texas — was followed by a 428% increase in total on-demand streams on the day following the show and consistent streams through the weekend post-show (+337%), according to data from Luminate.

Sheeran and Combs performed “Life Goes On” live together for the first time on the show. Following this performance, there was a 281% increase of total on-demand streams on the day following the show and consistent streams through the weekend (+210%), per Luminate.

Also according to data from Luminate, Wilson’s performance of “Grease” was followed by an increase in total on-demand streams on the day following the show (+221%) and saw an average increase of 206% through the weekend post-show.

Lambert’s “Carousel,” released in April 2022, saw a 209% increase in total on-demand streams on the day following the ACM Awards and consistent streams through the weekend post-show (+142%), per data from Luminate.

Also, Jelly Roll — who is the cover star of Billboard‘s latest issue — and Wilson performed a new duet version of “Save Me,” which landed at No. 4 on Country Digital Song Sales following the show.

58th ACM Awards co-host Dolly Parton’s “World on Fire,” the lead single from her highly anticipated rock album Rockstar, landed at No. 1 on the Rock Digital Song Sales chart as well as No. 3 on the Country Digital Song Sales chart.

Notes: For the day following the show, the percent change was measured from May 11 to May 12. For the weekend stats, a three-day average of May 12, May 13 and May 14 was compared to stats from May 11.

This marked the second year on Prime Video for the ACM Awards, which in 2022 became the first major awards show to stream live exclusively for a global audience. Co-hosted by Parton and Garth Brooks, the two-hour, commercial-free concert event streamed live for an international audience on May 11 across 240+ countries and territories exclusively on Prime Video and the Amazon Music channel on Twitch, from The Star in Frisco, Texas.

The show featured 18 performances from 24 artists, including Jason Aldean, Kane Brown, Combs, Jordan Davis, HARDY, Cody Johnson, Lambert, Parton, Jelly Roll, Urban, The War And Treaty, Wilson, and Bailey Zimmerman. Collaborations included Sheeran and Combs; Carly Pearce and Trisha Yearwood; Cole Swindell and Jo Dee Messina; and Ashley McBryde featuring Brandy Clark, Caylee Hammack, Pillbox Patti, and John Osborne.

The full rebroadcast is now available to watch on Prime Video, the Amazon Music App, and for free on Amazon Freevee.

The 58th Academy of Country Music Awards was produced by Dick Clark Productions, with Raj Kapoor, Barry Adelman, and Fonda Anita serving as executive producers, and Damon Whiteside serving as executive producer for the Academy of Country Music. Patrick Menton was co-executive producer.

The ACM Awards are produced by Dick Clark Productions. DCP is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a Penske Media Corporation (PMC) subsidiary and joint venture between PMC and Eldridge. PMC is the parent company of Billboard.