MTV Video Music Awards 2025: Lady Gaga leads with four wins as CBS simulcast drives six-year ratings high

Gaga's split-night sprint, Grande's big win, and a CBS jolt for MTV

The MTV Video Music Awards 2025 turned into a rare double win: a star-packed stage at UBS Arena in Elmont, New York, and a ratings bounce that MTV hasn’t seen in years. With 5.5 million viewers across platforms—a 42% lift from last year—the show’s first-ever live airing on CBS, alongside MTV and Paramount+, gave the VMAs the broad reach they’ve been chasing. LL Cool J steered the night with an easy, veteran touch, keeping a brisk show moving without losing the party vibe.

Lady Gaga owned the leaderboard. She arrived with 12 nominations and left as the night’s most awarded artist, taking four trophies, including Artist of the Year. Her night came with a twist: after accepting that first award, she told the crowd she had to go—fast—so she could make a scheduled performance at Madison Square Garden. That sprint from Elmont to Manhattan—roughly 18 miles—meant fans at UBS Arena watched parts of Gaga’s wins unfold from a distance. When Best Collaboration was announced later, Ashlee Simpson accepted on Gaga’s behalf, noting the pop star was onstage at the Garden.

The split-night schedule added a dose of live-TV unpredictability you can’t manufacture. It also underlined Gaga’s reach. To headline a national awards broadcast and a major arena show on the same night, and still top the winners list, is a flex that few can pull off.

Across the aisle, Ariana Grande collected the evening’s marquee honor: Video of the Year for "Brighter Days Ahead." It’s the VMAs’ most-watched category for a reason—Video of the Year has long been the snapshot of where pop visuals are headed. Grande also handed Mariah Carey the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award in a moment that felt both historic and warm. The Vanguard is less about a single year and more about decades of impact—artistry, visuals, and the way an artist reshapes the form. Carey’s montage traced that arc clearly: genre-crossing singles, high-concept videos, and a playbook pop stars still borrow from.

The VMAs also used the platform to widen the tent. Two new fan-voted categories—Best Country and Best Pop Artist—made their debut. That move says two things about the moment: genre lines are fluid in 2025, and fan bases mobilize at scale. In fan-voted categories, turnout often matters as much as taste, and adding them acknowledges how music culture actually moves now—online, in real time, and across scenes that don’t always sit on mainstream TV.

Veteran recognition cut through the noise, too. Busta Rhymes received the Rock the Bells Visionary Award, a nod to a career built on inventive visuals, breathless flows, and wild, era-defining videos that still feel modern. Ricky Martin accepted the Latin Icon Award, a reminder of how his late-’90s breakout opened doors for global Latin pop to become a permanent part of the mainstream—well beyond one-off “Latin explosion” headlines.

Not everything was trophies and staging. Sabrina Carpenter used her moment to speak up for the transgender community, aligning the night’s spectacle with a clear social stance. Award shows have become one of the few unfiltered live platforms left, and when artists use that time, it lands differently than a social post.

This year’s eligibility window—June 20, 2024 through June 18, 2025—kept the field current but competitive. It also gave room for songs that built slow, long-tail momentum online to line up against quick-burst smashes. If you wanted a snapshot of how hits actually form now, the nominees list did the job: part streaming velocity, part fan mobilization, part visual storytelling.

As for the telecast itself, the CBS simulcast proved to be the difference-maker. Putting the VMAs on a broadcast network opened the door to casual viewers who might not scroll to a cable channel or open a streaming app on a Sunday night. Paramount+ caught the on-the-go audience, while MTV kept the core music crowd intact. It’s the kind of “everywhere at once” strategy that live events have needed to rebound in a fragmented TV world, and on Sunday it showed up in the numbers.

The pre-show, hosted by Nessa and Kevan Kenney across MTV and sibling cable outlets, did what it needed to: funnel attention to the main telecast while pushing performance teases and red-carpet looks. Those quick-hit packages, social cuts, and backstage tosses helped the main show feel more like a live news event than a single feed. That’s how you scale attention in 2025—give people multiple entry points without splintering the story.

UBS Arena matched the moment. Built for big hockey nights and big tours, the room gave producers space for a tall stage, a clean runway, and camera moves that kept performances fast and fluid. With artists bouncing between elaborate set pieces and close crowd contact, the show kept a tight rhythm—no sag between speeches and songs, no long dead air while crews reset.

Gaga’s early exit was, of course, the night’s conversation starter. Some fans grumbled as she left minutes after the first trophy, but it’s hard to argue with the logistics: a same-night Garden show is a contractual reality, and the VMAs rolled with it. In a way, it underscored what makes live TV addictive: you plan for months, and then one decision—an artist on the move—reshapes the whole narrative on air.

Grande’s Video of the Year win capped a steady build for "Brighter Days Ahead." The video carried the kind of crisp, big-frame imagery that plays well on a living-room TV, not just a phone screen. That mattered more than usual this year, with CBS bringing a larger broadcast audience into the room. It’s a reminder to artists: if you want to win on a big stage, make something that looks great ten feet wide.

Mariah Carey’s Vanguard moment stitched generations together. Ariana presenting the award wasn’t just a celebrity pairing; it was a baton pass. Carey’s influence—whistle notes, melismatic runs, glossy high-concept visuals—runs through modern pop, and seeing that lineage spelled out on the VMA stage connected the dots for viewers who discovered her catalog via streaming rather than TRL-era TV.

And the veteran honors did more than pay respect. Busta’s Visionary nod put a spotlight on a specific pillar of hip-hop: the wildly inventive, high-speed, high-imagination video. Ricky Martin’s Latin Icon Award, meanwhile, placed global pop where it belongs—in the permanent center of the VMAs, not a side channel. That’s the reality of the charts now, and the show matched it.

Lady Gaga won four awards and left early to perform at Madison Square Garden after accepting Artist of the Year.
Ariana Grande took Video of the Year for "Brighter Days Ahead."
Mariah Carey received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, presented by Grande.
The VMAs introduced Best Country and Best Pop Artist, both fan-voted.
Busta Rhymes earned the Rock the Bells Visionary Award.
Ricky Martin was honored with the Latin Icon Award.
Sabrina Carpenter voiced support for the transgender community during her set.
Ratings hit 5.5 million viewers, up 42% year over year, aided by the first-ever CBS simulcast.

The numbers are the headline, but the strategy is the story. Awards shows have struggled in a world where most people watch on demand and talk about it later online. By landing on CBS, streaming on Paramount+, and keeping MTV in the mix, the VMAs became a shared live moment again. That’s the bet: make the show easy to find, and viewers will show up when the performances feel big and the wins feel consequential.

For MTV, the result is a blueprint. Keep the fan-voted categories that drive social engagement. Keep the cross-generational honors that remind people why this brand still matters. And keep staging the kind of live, slightly chaotic TV that only happens when the biggest names in pop and hip-hop are rushing from the wings to the mic—and sometimes, from one arena to another.