Kennedy Center Defends Trump-Hosted Honors Ratings Performance: This Was a Successful Night

The Kennedy Center is defending the ratings performance for the 2025 Honors, hosted by Donald Trump, which saw the show reach an all-time viewership low.

“Comparing this year’s broadcast ratings to prior years is a classic apples-to-oranges comparison and evidence of far-left bias,” Roma Daravi, vp of public relations for the Kennedy Center, said in a statement shared with The Hollywood Reporter. “The program performed extremely well across key demographics and platforms, despite industry and timing disadvantages, including a Tuesday air date two days before Christmas.”

On Tuesday, Nielsen Live + Same Day Panel + Big Data reported the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors averaged 4.1 million viewers, meaning this year’s show dropped 26 percent in viewership year-on-year. However, since the 2024 honors, Nielsen shifted its methodology, launching its “Big Data + Panel” system that combines its traditional panel data with data from smart TVs and set-top boxes.

The 2024 show was broadcast on a Sunday with an NFL lead-in, the Kennedy Center outlined on background.

“With overall television usage down roughly 20 percent year over year, the broadcast still tied for the #1 spot among adults aged 25–54, alongside a live NBA doubleheader,” Daravi continued. “And on social media, Honors garnered 1.5 billion impressions in just one night — up from only 50 million similar impressions last year. This was a successful night celebrating the outstanding achievements of our Honorees at the Trump Kennedy Center.”

This year’s ceremony was hosted by Trump and spotlighted Sylvester Stallone,Kiss, Gloria Gaynor, Michael Crawford and George Strait as honorees. The show was taped on Dec. 7, where Trump anticipated that the broadcast would draw in the best ratings yet. The president made a similar viewership prediction at an event filmed one day before the ceremony.

“I believe — and I’m gonna make a prediction — this will be the highest-rated show that they’ve ever done, and they’ve gotten some pretty good ratings, but there’s nothing like what’s gonna happen tomorrow night,” Trump said. “We never had a president hosting the awards before. This is a first. I’m sure they’ll give me great reviews, right? You know, they’ll say, ‘He was horrible. He was terrible. It was a horrible situation.’ No, we’ll do fine. I’ve watched some of the people that host. Jimmy Kimmel was horrible, and some of these people, if I can’t beat out Jimmy Kimmel in terms of talent, then I don’t think I should be president.”