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The 2024 BET Awards saw a double digit uptick in viewership when compared to last year.
Airing from approximately 8 p.m. to 11:26 p.m. on Sunday, June 30, the BET Awards scored 3 million total viewers across 10 Paramount-owned networks — including BET, Logo, Comedy Central, MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon, among others — according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day figures.
That’s up 10% from last year’s BET Awards, which drew in a cross-platform viewership of 2.8 million viewers. The show, which featured performances from Will Smith, Victoria Monét and Tyla, was the day’s most-watched program across TV and ranks as the most-watched cable awards show this year.
When including the red carpet live show and the encore airing, viewership for the BET Awards grew to 4.3 million viewers, also marking a 10% uptick from last year.
The ceremony also drew in 1.3 million viewers within the key cable demo among adults 18-49 across the 10 networks, marking a 7% increase in demo viewers from last year and its highest demo viewership in five years. On BET alone, the show reached nearly 2 million viewers, and saw a 15% uptick in demo viewers from last year.
With striking speeches from host Taraji P. Henson, who made a call to action ahead of the 2024 election, as well as Donald Glover, who pointed out how it doesn’t “make sense” that he shares the same number of BET Awards as Sam Smith, the show was buzzy on social media as well. In addition to the BET Awards ranking as the No. 1 trending topic on X, the show scored the most social media engagement across TV with 10.5 million social interactions and more than 82% year-over-year growth.
Other buzzy moments included Smith debuting his brand new song “You Can Make It” alongside Fridayy and the Sunday Service Choir, as well as Usher’s emotional 13-minute speech while accepting his Lifetime Achievement Award, which was partially muted due to “an audio malfunction.”
Usher also won Best Male R&B/Pop Artist while SZA won the same honor in her respective category. Nicki Minaj and Kendrick Lamar were named Best Female and Male Hip-Hop Artist, respectively, while Tyla won Best New Artist.
