Madonna and Sabrina Carpenter at The 2026 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), broadcasting live from the Peacock Theater on Sunday, September 27, 2026 on the CBS Television Network, and streaming live and on demand on Paramount+*. — Photo: Francis Specker/CBS ©2026 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Airing directly out of a down-to-the-wire NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and Baltimore Ravens, the MTV Video Music Awards delivered big numbers for the Paramount family of networks.
According to Paramount, the broadcast averaged 8.43 million total live+same-day viewers across CBS and MTV. Just over 7.6 million watched via CBS; the balance came from the initial MTV simulcast (686K) and an encore on MTV (142K).
Up 51% in audience from the 2025 edition, it was the most-watched VMAs ceremony since 2015.
The show posted similarly massive gains in all key young adult demographics.
A breakdown of the numbers, however, reveals a disproportionate level of interest in the opening segment. Paramount notes that the opening act drew 15 million total viewers. That opening act would have received the biggest quantitative lift from the NFL lead-in; it also contained a heavily hyped performance by Madonna with special guests Sabrina Carpenter and Charli XCX.