Trump Kennedy Center defends Honors viewership ratings amid blowback

The Trump–Kennedy Center is pushing back on a recent media narrative that its annual Honors awards show suffered a ratings flop under President Donald Trump compared to years prior, arguing that the broadcast performed strongly despite industry-wide headwinds and a dramatically different scheduling landscape.

“Comparing this year’s broadcast ratings to prior years is a classic apples-to-oranges comparison and evidence of far-left bias,” Roma Daravi, Trump–Kennedy Center vice president of public relations, told Fox News Digital of the ratings. “The program performed extremely well across key demographics and platforms, despite industry and timing disadvantages, including a Tuesday air date two days before Christmas.”

The 48th Kennedy Center Honors awards show was held in Washington, D.C., Dec. 7 and honored artists such as country singer George Strait, the members of rock band KISS, Tony-award winner Michael Crawford, Grammy-winner Gloria Gaynor, and Hollywood star Sylvester Stallone. The awards show is held each year to celebrate “individuals whose unique artistic contributions have shaped our world,” according to its website. 

Trump hosted the event, with its broadcast held weeks late Dec. 23, 2025, on CBS and Paramount+. 

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The event averaged 3.01 million viewers, which is a 25% drop from 2024’s ratings when an average 4.1 million viewers tuned in, according to a report from Nielsen Live + Same Day Panel + Big Data reported by Variety in December. The ratings yielded headlines reporting that viewership “plummeted,” and late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert mocked Trump for hosting “the lowest-rated Kennedy Center Honors telecast of all time,” as Kimmel said in his Monday monologue.

Daravi countered that viewership for the awards show “tied for the #1 spot among adults aged 25–54, alongside a live NBA doubleheader” while citing that overall TV usage is “down roughly 20 percent year over year.” 

The NBA’s Tuesday night doubleheader Dec. 23, 2025, featured the Denver Nuggets visiting the Dallas Mavericks, followed by the Houston Rockets taking on the Los Angeles Clippers.

 “And on social media, Honors garnered 1.5 Billion impressions in just one night—up from only 50 Million similar impressions last year,” Daravi continued. “This was a successful night celebrating the outstanding achievements of our Honorees at the Trump Kennedy Center.” 

Trump predicted ahead of the event that ratings would be sky-high and that he would garner more viewers than late-night host Kimmel, who is a longtime critic and political foe of Trump’s. The president also predicted critics would “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.” 

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Trump celebrated during the event that “we’re bringing this building back to life like nobody ever thought was even possible.” The Honors awards show raised a record $23 million, nearly doubling 2024’s $12.7 million raised under the Biden administration’s final days. 

The 2024 broadcast was also held on a Sunday and had an NFL viewership in the lead up to the program, including a New England Patriots versus Buffalo Bills game that afternoon. 

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The broadcast was held just days after the Trump administration announced that the center’s board of trustees unanimously voted to rename it “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” 

Presidents appoint the majority of the board’s trustees, with Trump dismissing the previously appointed Board of Trustees “who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture” in the early weeks of his second administration. Trump is also the first and only president to serve as the center’s chairman of the board. 

The name change set off swift rebuke among Democrats, with nonvoting board members including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and others claiming the move was illegal as it did not earn congressional approval ahead of time. 

The center said that the board agreed Trump saved the institution from financial ruin during his second term. 

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“The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees voted unanimously today to name the institution The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,”  Daravi told Fox News Digital of the name change. “The unanimous vote recognizes that the current Chairman saved the institution from financial ruin and physical destruction.”