Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve rang in 2026 with a ratings victory.
The annual special celebrated the new year with 30M viewers at midnight ET on ABC. That’s a 35.1% increase over last year’s audience of 22.2M when the ball dropped in Times Square and a four-year high.
Per early Nielsen data, the late-night edition of the special from 11:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. averaged 18.8M viewers, also up slightly from 2025. Out-of-home viewing is not available in early reporting from Nielsen, so this number is likely to increase.
Meanwhile, in primetime, New Year’s Rockin’ Eve led broadcast from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. with 7.03M viewers, posting a 12% increase over last year.
The audience grew as the night went on, as expected, with 10.59M viewers from 10:30 to 11:30 p.m. ET. The second part of the primetime special rose just a hair over 2025’s 9.31M.
As the night wore on, things began to dwindle again, though a sizable audience stuck around until nearly 2 a.m. ABC’s late-late-night special generated 8.25M viewers from 12:30 a.m. to 1:51 a.m. That is nearly double last year’s 4.45M and an eight-year high.
Dick Clark Productions is a Penske Media company, as is Deadline.