‘Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve’ Stays Steady Year-Over-Year As Ball Drop Rings In 22M Viewers

Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest saw a year-over-year audience decline on Tuesday night but still managed to ring in 2025 with a ratings win as the most-watched of the televised NYE bashes.

The annual special on ABC averaged 7.9M viewers in primetime from 8 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. EST, which is a 6% decrease from last year’s 8.4M. The late night edition, of course, brought in a much larger crowd in anticipation of the ball drop, averaging 17.9M from 11:30 pm to 12:30 a.m., on par with the 2023 celebration.

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Viewership soared to 22M, once again in line with last year, in the midnight quarter hour as the ball dropped in Times Square.

Per usual, the audience grew throughout the night, posting the smallest viewership in the 8 to 10 p.m. hours, when around 6.2M tuned in. From 10 to 11:30, this ballooned to 9.5M before nearly doubling for the last hour of the night.

New Year’s Rockin’ Eve led by quite a margin, with CBS’ New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash coming in second place with 4.9M from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. In the late-night hour, the country themed event increased its audience to 6.9M.

In third place among the broadcasters was NBC’s Day Drinking with Seth Meyers New Year’s Eve special, which managed about 1.5M viewers from 11:30 to 12:30 a.m.

CNN’s coverage with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen also generated a sizable audience of 1.8M viewers for a festive night featuring the usual NYE festivities as well as interviews with Diplo, Ralph Fiennes and more. That ballooned to 3.7M viewers from 12 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. as audiences began to ring in the new year.

Dick Clark Productions is a Penske Media company, as is Deadline.

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