People's Choice Awards

Overview

The People's Choice Awards are an American awards show recognizing entertainment across film, television, music, and pop culture, with winners determined by public online voting rather than industry professionals. The 49th ceremony took place on February 18, 2024, at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California, hosted by Simu Liu. The telecast aired live simultaneously on NBC, E!, and Peacock, drawing 3.5 million viewers on NBC and 407,000 on E!. Barbie led the film categories with 5 awards from 9 nominations, including Movie of the Year, Comedy Movie of the Year, Male Movie Star (Ryan Gosling), Female Movie Star (Margot Robbie), and Movie Performance of the Year (America Ferrera).

The awards cover 45 categories. For 2024, new categories were added: Male Country Artist, Female Country Artist, Male Latin Artist, Female Latin Artist, and Concert Tour. The ceremony has been owned by E! (NBCUniversal) since 2017, when the network acquired the rights from Procter and Gamble, which had sponsored the awards since 1982.

In May 2026, it was announced that the People's Choice Awards will return in 2027 and air on E!. No ceremony was held in 2025. The official voting platform publishes nominee lists and voting information when the ceremony is active.

Voting Process

The People's Choice Awards are determined entirely by public online voting. There is no industry body, academy, or jury involved in selecting winners. The process works as follows:

1. Nominee selection: Nominees are determined by a combination of box office performance, streaming metrics, social media engagement, and cultural impact data compiled by the awards' production team. The exact methodology is not publicly disclosed.
2. Public voting: Once nominees are announced, voting opens to the general public through the official website. Fans can vote online in all 45 categories. There is no registration requirement or demographic screening of voters, meaning the awards reflect the enthusiasm of motivated fan communities rather than a statistically representative sample of the population.
3. No ranked choice: The title or individual with the most votes in a category wins. There is no preferential ballot or runoff system.

This structure means that categories with highly organized fan bases, particularly in music and television, can see outcomes driven by coordinated social media campaigns rather than broad popular consensus. The awards make no claim to artistic merit; they measure audience enthusiasm.

Key Film Categories

The People's Choice Awards present film categories alongside television, music, and pop culture categories. The film-specific categories for the 49th ceremony (2024) were:

• Movie of the Year
• Action Movie of the Year
• Comedy Movie of the Year
• Drama Movie of the Year
• Male Movie Star of the Year
• Female Movie Star of the Year
• Action Movie Star of the Year
• Comedy Movie Star of the Year
• Drama Movie Star of the Year
• Movie Performance of the Year
• Family Movie of the Year
• Animated Movie Star of the Year

Television categories include Show of the Year, Comedy Show, Drama Show, Bingeworthy Show, and various acting categories. Music categories include Male Artist, Female Artist, Pop Artist, Hip-Hop Artist, Song of the Year, Album of the Year, and Concert Tour. Pop culture categories include Social Celebrity, Athlete of the Year, and Game Changer of the Year.

Recent Ceremony (49th People's Choice Awards, February 2024)

The 49th ceremony was held on February 18, 2024, at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. Key film winners:

Barbie led all film nominees with 9 nominations and won 5 awards. Oppenheimer received 6 nominations and won Drama Movie of the Year. On the television side, Grey's Anatomy won Show of the Year. Taylor Swift won 4 music awards (Female Artist, Pop Artist, Concert Tour, Social Celebrity). Adam Sandler received the People's Icon Award, and Lenny Kravitz received the Music Icon Award.

History

The People's Choice Awards were created in 1975 by Bob Stivers, originally broadcast on CBS. The first ceremony took place on March 3, 1975, hosted by Army Archerd and Richard Crenna. From 1975 to 2004, winners were determined using Gallup Polls, which surveyed a representative sample of the American public. In 2005, the methodology switched to online voting, fundamentally changing the character of the awards. The Gallup Poll era produced winners that reflected broad popular taste; the online voting era produces winners that reflect the intensity of fan communities.

The ceremony has changed networks and scheduling multiple times. It aired on CBS from 1975 to 2017. In April 2017, E! (NBCUniversal) acquired the awards. The ceremony was initially moved from January to November to reduce proximity to the busy awards season, but this was reverted for 2024 with a move back to February. Since 2021, the ceremony has aired on NBC alongside E!, with Peacock added as a streaming option in 2024.

A spin-off, the People's Choice Country Awards, was launched in September 2023 and airs on NBC. In May 2026, NBCUniversal announced that the main People's Choice Awards would return in 2027 on E!, with no ceremony held in 2025 or 2026.

Business Impact for Filmmakers

The People's Choice Awards occupy a different position in the entertainment ecosystem than industry-voted awards. They measure audience enthusiasm rather than peer recognition, which gives them distinct commercial value.

Marketing validation: A People's Choice Award provides studios with a marketing tool that resonates with general audiences. While an Oscar or Golden Globe signals critical and industry approval, a People's Choice Award signals that real audiences loved a film. Studios use this distinction in home entertainment marketing, streaming platform promotion, and sequel greenlight decisions. Barbie's 5-win sweep at the 49th ceremony reinforced its position as the highest-grossing film of 2023 with $1.446 billion in global box office.

Fan engagement measurement: For franchises with dedicated fan bases, the People's Choice Awards provide a quantifiable measure of fan engagement that studios use when evaluating franchise health. The Action Movie categories, in particular, track the performance of blockbuster franchises that may not receive industry awards recognition but generate substantial revenue.

Limited industry impact: Unlike the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, or guild awards, a People's Choice Award does not typically influence financing decisions, distribution deals, or talent representation. Industry professionals do not vote on these awards, and the outcomes are not treated as indicators of artistic quality within the film community. For independent or arthouse filmmakers, the People's Choice Awards have limited relevance, as the nominee pool skews toward wide-release studio films with large marketing budgets.

Social media amplification: The fan-voted structure generates significant social media activity during the voting period, as fan communities organize voting campaigns. This organic social media engagement provides additional earned media value for nominated films and television shows, extending their cultural visibility beyond the ceremony itself.

Eligibility Quirks That Trip People Up

• No industry submission process: Films cannot be submitted for consideration. Nominees are determined internally by the production team using box office data, streaming metrics, and social media engagement. A filmmaker whose film performed well but was not nominated has no recourse or appeal process.
• Fan mobilization skews results: Because voting is open to anyone online with no registration or demographic screening, categories with organized fan bases can produce winners that do not reflect broad popular consensus. Music and television categories are particularly susceptible to coordinated social media voting campaigns.
• No ceremony in 2025 or 2026: NBCUniversal announced in May 2026 that the People's Choice Awards will return in 2027 on E!. The two-year gap means films released in 2024 and 2025 will not have a corresponding ceremony, creating a discontinuity in the awards' history.
• Nominee pool skews to wide-release studio films: Independent and arthouse films rarely appear in the nominee pool because the selection methodology favors box office performance and cultural impact metrics. Filmmakers working in specialty or limited-release cinema should not expect People's Choice recognition regardless of critical acclaim.

Prestige Tier

The People's Choice Awards sit at the bottom of the industry prestige hierarchy. They carry zero weight in financing decisions, distribution negotiations, or talent representation. No industry professional treats a People's Choice win as an indicator of artistic quality. The awards' value is commercial, not artistic: studios use them as a marketing tool to signal audience enthusiasm to downstream consumers. Compared to the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, or guild prizes, the People's Choice Awards measure a fundamentally different thing (fan intensity rather than peer recognition) and should be evaluated on those terms. For franchise films and wide-release studio titles, a People's Choice win can reinforce marketing narratives. For independent filmmakers, the awards have negligible relevance.

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See Also

For understanding how audience reception data fits into a film's commercial strategy, see Distribution Deals Explained. To model how box office performance and audience metrics translate into revenue projections, use the Revenue Forecast Calculator. For evaluating marketing spend against projected returns across distribution windows, use the Ad Spend Break-Even Calculator.