Los Angeles, California - The number of people tuning in to watch the Golden Globe Awards shrank this year, organizers announced Wednesday, as Hollywood's gala evenings continue to struggle with declining viewership.

Around 8.7 million people in the US watched the star-studded ceremony in which Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another dominated the prizes.

That figure is down from the 9.3 million who tuned in last year, according to numbers from the Nielsen Institute, and is around half the size of the audiences just before the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Globes, long billed as Hollywood's biggest party, and the raucous forerunner to the awards season finale Oscars, were beset by scandal and accusations of racism that led to the Globes not even being aired in 2022.

The gala was ultimately dropped by long-time broadcaster NBC, but relaunched with CBS in 2024 under new ownership, and has undergone significant reforms aimed at stamping out perceptions of corruption and racism.

Sunday night's bash saw Hollywood's best and brightest out in force for an evening fronted by comedian Nikki Glaser, whose acerbic opening monologue was watched nearly 14 million times on social media over the first 36 hours, organizers said.

Among Glaser's zingers was a jab at the US Department of Justice, which she said should be in line for the Best Editing Award for its handling of the heavily redacted files on President Donald Trump's one-time friend, sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

As well as significant victories for One Battle After Another, key winners on the evening included William Shakespeare family tragedy Hamnet, which won best drama film and a best female actor prize for Jessie Buckley as a distraught mother.

Timothée Chalamet and Brazilian Wagner Moura added to their awards season momentum with prizes for Marty Supreme and The Secret Agent, respectively.

The Golden Globes are seen as a leading indicator of success in the Oscars, which take place in Hollywood this year on March 15.