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“Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest” rang in 2025 with an impressive audience, landing the top spot among New Year’s Eve primetime and late-night programming.
The annual ABC special brought in 18 million total viewers and peaked at 21.5 million total viewers at midnight, according to fast national live-plus-same-day viewing figures from Nielsen. The special did not surpass last year’s record viewership of the show, which got to 22.2 million at midnight to ring in 2024, though numbers are likely to increase when full night viewership is counted.
Carrie Underwood headlined the long-running special, and performed a medley of her songs from Times Square just before midnight. Additional performers for the night included Alanis Morissette, Blake Shelton, Reneé Rapp, Dasha, Fat Joe, Slick Rick & Doug E. Fresh, Ernest, HARDY, Kesha, Laufey, Natasha Bedingfield and T-Pain, among others.
The late-night hours, airing from 11:30-12:29 a.m. ET, dominated viewership with 17.9 million total viewers and a 4.73 rating in the 19-49 demo, reaching a peak during the midnight quarter hour with 21.5 million total viewers and a 5.70 demo rating.
The primetime “Rockin’ Eve” show, airing 8-10 p.m., was the no. 1 entertainment program in the timeslot in both total viewers (6.2 million) and with adults 18-49 (1.46). Primetime 1 beat its CBS competitor, “New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash” by double digits, with the latter scoring 4.9 million viewers and a .68 in the demo. Part 2 of the special averaged 9.5 million total viewers and a 2.39 rating.
iHeart Media’s live audio broadcast across the U.S. reached 1.8 million listeners across 150 station on Tuesday night — a 56% increase from last year’s event.
