Host Cynthia Erivo performs during the 78th Tony Awards on Sunday, June 8, 2025, at Radio City Music Hall in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
NEW YORK (AP) — The Tony Awards on Sunday lured 4.85 million viewers to CBS, its largest broadcast audience in six years, according to Nielsen’s data.
CBS said Monday the telecast — hosted by “Wicked” star Cynthia Erivo — scored a 38% increase over last year’s 3.53 million viewers.
That’s the largest audience for the Tonys since 2019, when the telecast that year nabbed 5.4 million viewers and “ Hadestown ” was crowned best new musical. The latest version also had to compete with the second game of the NBA Finals, between the Thunder and Pacers,
CBS also said the awards show drew its largest ever streaming audience on Paramount+ but did not disclose streaming viewership numbers, only saying it was up 208% from last year.
“Maybe Happy Ending,” a rom-com about androids that crackles with humanity won best new musical on a night when Kara Young made history as the first Black person to win two Tonys consecutively for “Purpose,” which also won best new play.
Interest in the Tonys may also have been fueled by the competition in the best lead actress in a musical category, with Audra McDonald gunning for her record-setting seventh Tony and Nicole Scherzinger of “Sunset Blvd.” hoping to be crowned a legitimate Broadway diva after a career in the pop group Pussycat Dolls and as a TV talent show judge.
Other Hollywood names included in the telecast included George Clooney making his Broadway debut and “Succession” star Sarah Snook being named best leading actress in a play for “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” a one-woman show.
Swedish buy now, pay later company Klarna is making its highly anticipated public debut on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, the latest in a run of high-profile initial public offerings this year. The offering priced at $40 Tuesday, above the forecasted range of $35 to $37 a share, valuing the company at more than $15 billion. The valuation easily makes Klarna one of the biggest IPOs so far in 2025, which has been one of the busier years for companies going public. Other popular IPOs so far this year include the design software company Figma and Circle Internet Group, which issues the USDC stablecoin..
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison wrested the title of the world’s richest man from longtime holder Elon Musk early Wednesday as stock in his software giant rocketed more than a third in a stunning few minutes of trading. That is according to wealth tracker Bloomberg. A college dropout, the 81-year-old Ellison is now worth $393 billion, Bloomberg says, several billion more than Musk, who had been the world’s richest for four years. The switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle. Forbes still has Musk as the richest, however, valuing his private businesses much higher.
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