Once, the BRIT Awards were the kind of event that dominated conversations in offices, school playgrounds, student unions and pubs across the nation. Tales of Geri Halliwell’s Union Jack dress, Jarvis Cocker’s impromptu confrontation with Michael Jackson’s messianic performance, or Adele’s middle finger during a bungled speech cut-off lingered in the cultural memory for years. There was a thrill in seeing which superstar might combust under the spotlights. For a while, these televised ceremonies felt like a totem of British pop: the biggest stage, the rowdiest afterparty, and the moment that crystallised what had been happening across the country’s charts and venues for the preceding twelve months.
But time has changed the landscape. By the mid-2010s, TV audiences for the BRITs began sliding, eroded by streaming platforms, social media, and a general shift away from appointment viewing. Even high-wattage performances could no longer guarantee the mass audience that once gathered around living-room TVs in the 1990s or early 2000s. Some started murmuring that the BRITs risked becoming a relic of a pre-digital era, still clinging to the theatre-in-the-round spectacle even as younger fans scattered across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.
That drumbeat of doubt grew louder in the early 2020s as the viewing figures reached a record low of 2.7 million in 2022. The same ceremony, broadcast mid-week, featured a lively array of performances but struggled to feel essential in a cultural moment dominated by fast-moving online trends. The organisers’ response was to move the show to Saturday night – traditionally prime real estate for family entertainment. It worked briefly: the 2023 edition pulled a modest upswing to around 3.3 million viewers, reversing years of decline. But the 2024 figures slid back to 2.5 million, the second-worst in the awards’ history. Critics rolled their eyes and pointed out that any event reliant on television alone in 2025 was doomed to stagnate. Is that just the unavoidable truth of modern media consumption, where your audience is found via clips on a social network, not eyeballs on a piece of event television, or can something be done?
The BRITs are hardly alone in confronting the challenge of an atomised media world. Still, the downturn feels acute for a ceremony that once boasted appointment levels of national viewership. Around the turn of the millennium, more than nine million people would routinely watch. The show’s producers could rely on word-of-mouth the next day, with highlights replayed across breakfast TV and radio, guaranteeing another round of buzz. Today, that water cooler effect has dwindled, partly because many watchers don’t experience it live at all. Instead, they see clips on social media, chopped into 30-second bursts, or catch a trending moment on TikTok days later.
Yet the question “Do the BRITs still matter?” goes beyond ratings. It’s about whether the awards retain a cultural presence worth caring about. The organisers insist the ceremony continues to command attention in new ways, pointing to millions of social-media views across multiple platforms around each year’s show. The official BRITs YouTube channel, for instance, aims as much for fans outside the UK as in it. Then there’s the red-carpet pre-show, streamed live on Instagram, and the subsequent avalanche of memes and reaction videos posted on Twitter and TikTok. The BRITs’ defenders argue that counting linear TV audiences alone misses the full picture because engagement is more fluid now. A performance that passes by on the night can go viral later if it taps into the right conversation.
Still, it’s not only about eyeballs. As with so much over recent years, the ceremony’s lustre was also dented by valid commentary around representation. In 2022, the BRITs announced they would merge the traditional Best Male and Best Female categories into a single gender-neutral award. The intention was to be more inclusive, but concerns arose that women might be sidelined – which proved accurate in 2023, when all five nominees for Artist of the Year were men. The backlash from fans, journalists, and artists themselves was swift. The organisers scrambled to defend the decision, maintaining that merging categories was still the right move in the long run. When 2024’s ceremony arrived, they tried to prevent another male-centric shortlist by doubling the number of nominees for Artist of the Year from five to ten. Statistically, that should have improved the odds of women appearing. And it did. That year, RAYE, who had famously split from her major label and self-released her debut album, walked away with six awards in an unprecedented sweep that cemented her as a new British pop force.
RAYE’s success felt like the right outcome for a ceremony keen to champion female talent. She’d faced a bruising industry path, from label disputes to struggling for creative control, and her multiple wins played like both vindication and protest. For the BRITs, it was a chance to proclaim that, yes, female artists were valued, and that the fiasco of 2023 would never be repeated. The press were enthusiastic, though some noted that the expanded nomination fields were a band-aid solution that didn’t address deeper structural biases – like the radio playlists or label priorities that shape mainstream popularity in the first place. Still, the effect was undeniable: for a brief moment, the BRITs felt just a little more relevant. Much, much more to be done, but at least we were heading in the right direction.
Another area where the BRITs have been consciously recalibrating is genre recognition. For decades, the ceremony was tilted heavily toward big pop stars and the occasional rock band, with only token nods to dance or hip-hop. By 2022, organisers bowed to criticism and introduced four new fan-voted categories: Alternative/Rock, Dance, Hip-Hop/Grime/Rap, and Pop/R&B. It was an attempt to reflect the staggering breadth of British music scenes rather than corral everything into Best British Single or Best British Group. The logic was that letting fans vote in these categories might pull in younger audiences who champion niche or underground acts. It could also highlight emergent genres that rarely saw the inside of the O2 Arena. In 2025, that spirit remains a driving force. Now, the BRITs have gone further by splitting Pop and R&B into separate categories after persistent complaints that R&B acts were overshadowed by big-name pop icons.
It’s an overdue shift. Sceptics say it’s cosmetic – that handing out extra trophies doesn’t mean the ceremony is suddenly broad-minded. But the nominations this year tell a different story: you might see an unconventional jazz-funk collective like Ezra Collective or a post-punk outfit like English Teacher rubbing shoulders with mainstream chart fixtures. Promoters of underground or boundary-pushing music remain cautious, given how rarely such artists triumph on the actual night. Yet there’s a tangible sense that the BRITs at least want to be seen as relevant to more than the commercial Top 40. The question is whether these fresh, edgy nominees can convert nods into wins, or if they’re merely there to show the Academy’s scope before a more recognisable name takes the statue.
Those statues themselves have sparked another debate: does letting the public decide help the BRITs connect with real fans, or does it devolve into a popularity contest among warring fanbases on social media? The organisers seem untroubled by the risk of online fan armies skewing results, seeing it as a source of hype rather than an integrity issue. The Academy retains control over major categories like Artist of the Year and Album of the Year, presumably to maintain the sense of an industry-endorsed hallmark of quality. At the same time, letting the public weigh in on certain awards acknowledges that music consumption in 2025 is driven as much by listeners’ streaming habits and TikTok singalongs as it is by old-guard gatekeepers. The hybrid approach is an attempt to satisfy both: fans can tip their favourites over the line in some categories, while the overall shape of the night is still curated by a panel of insiders, industry types and critics.
Whether this is enough to revive the BRITs’ cultural clout remains up for debate. The organisers have been explicit that they measure success now in different ways, noting how widely performance clips are shared on social channels, how many hashtags trend, or how long the ceremony’s highlights remain part of the online conversation. It’s not about a neat one-night ratings figure anymore; it’s about occupying attention in the swirling churn of short-form media. The question is whether that’s an impossible aim in the first place. Awards shows, in general, have been losing their singular hold on the public for years. Some see that as a good thing, given the suspicion that these ceremonies are often more about backslapping than genuine artistic merit. Others argue there’s still a place for a big communal night celebrating music, so long as it’s inclusive, lively, and represents what’s exciting in the scene.
An equally important piece of the puzzle is whether the BRITs can keep building on their progress around diversity. Gender – while still very much a work in progress – is only one part of it. There are ongoing concerns about how well the ceremony represents Black British music, especially beyond the occasional high-profile grime or rap performance. The Academy has been quietly expanding its membership to include younger critics, more women, and more people of colour, with the hope that the final tallies better reflect the mosaic of UK music. Some watchers say the changes are token gestures that won’t move the needle until major labels shift how they invest in and promote acts. Others believe that any institutional push, no matter how incremental, can send a broader signal that the mainstream is ready for a wider range of faces and sounds.
Behind the scenes, label executives and producers insist the BRITs still carry weight. There’s an argument that winning, or even being nominated, can boost an artist’s visibility in a crowded market, leading to bigger festival slots or marketing budgets. There’s also the intangible sense of tradition: these awards have existed since the late 1970s, and despite all the changes, people still like the idea that once a year, the entire British pop community dresses up and has a raucous, champagne-fuelled party. After-show gatherings and record-label dinners have become legendary networking hubs – deals are struck, collaborations are hatched, and gossip is exchanged. Even if the mainstream public only half-pays attention these days, the industry continues to treat the event as a hub of schmoozing and celebration.
Whether that level of insider reverence translates to broader cultural resonance is trickier. Younger audiences, in particular, are more likely to respond to an artist’s presence on social media than to a red-carpet moment at the O2 Arena, unless said moment goes viral in its own right. Many British teenagers have never watched a full BRITs ceremony live, but might watch the best bits on YouTube afterwards if they hear something interesting happened. This truncated engagement suits the era of short attention spans, but it’s a far cry from the days when half the country tuned in at the same time to see if the Gallagher brothers would swear on air.
Still, the awards manage to conjure the occasional flashpoint. There’s always the possibility of a “BRITs moment” that sets social channels buzzing – a surprise onstage collaboration, a politically loaded acceptance speech, or a pop icon falling down the stairs. The organisers surely recognise that the show needs a bit of drama to ignite the conversation. Sometimes, it’s the slip-ups that keep the BRITs in the headlines.
In purely commercial terms, the ceremony can still be a useful boost. After her 2024 triumph, RAYE saw her streams surge, and she booked a series of sold-out shows that she said were “unthinkable” just a few years prior. Nominees often plan re-releases, marketing campaigns, or surprise announcements around the night, hoping to capitalise on whatever fleeting momentum remains. The labels, for their part, still see a BRITs slot as valuable real estate: a prime-time moment where you can stage an elaborate performance with a custom set, lavish production, and perhaps some much-needed airtime at a point where music barely makes a dent on prime time telly. Despite the smaller audience, it remains a rare chance to make a statement.
But for all the brand partnerships and big-budget set pieces, the question of cultural resonance endures. The BRITs have leaned into the notion that capturing people on social media is as important as hooking them for the entire broadcast. If that’s the measure, then 2025’s show might well be a success: short clips of the biggest surprises will be reposted, garnering millions of views within hours. The organisers seem comfortable with this new paradigm, insisting it gives the ceremony a longer tail of relevance. Once upon a time, if you missed the show on broadcast night, you’d probably catch a highlights reel on the news. Now, you can encounter the highlights in your feed and watch them repeatedly at your leisure or slice them into your own meme.
Does that mean the BRITs themselves have been overshadowed by their own digital afterlife? Possibly. But in the end, it might not matter if the net effect is that people still talk about the event. Some longtime observers argue that as long as the show produces at least a few memorable moments – whether joyful, baffling, or downright controversial – the BRITs will maintain a foothold in the public consciousness. If the show’s main challenge in the 90s was maintaining order amid rock-star rowdiness, its challenge now is capturing even a fraction of a fragmented audience’s attention. That’s a tall order, but there remains a place in British culture for a big, glitzy, once-a-year celebration of homegrown music. It might not command nine million viewers again, but a couple million on TV plus tens of millions more across social media might suffice. It might take more than reconfigured categories and expanded shortlists, but the BRITs are at least trying to suggest they’re no longer coasting on past glories. As long as they try to meet the conversations that define British music, the biggest night in UK pop may still have a reason to exist, even if it looks and feels drastically different from its champagne-soaked heyday.
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