Thursday, March 28, 2024

Grammy Awards Hit Historic Low Despite Excellent Show, 1 Million Less Than Last Year

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UPDATE CBS later reported 8.93 million in fast overnight ratings. So that’s a big difference from 7.8 mil but still terrible. We’ll know more on Tuesday morning.

EARLIER The Grammy Awards were a ratings dud.

Despite putting on an excellent, classy show, the Recording Academy came in with just 7.8 million viewers. That’s down from 8.8 million last year, an 11% drop.

The show still won the evening and beat “American Idol,” its biggest competition, handily.

But the low number is a disappointment considering some great segments, especially Lady Gaga in her tribute to Tony Bennett, Lenny Kravitz with HER Music, the appearance of Joni Mitchell with Bonnie Raitt, and so on.

Indeed, this was the classiest Grammy show in many years. And that’s an accomplishment considering it was produced for the first time ever in Las Vegas, and was three months late.

There are some quibbles, but there are always quibbles. I can go into them later. But Ben Winston and CBS tried to appeal to a wide audience with lots of rap, R&B, country, and Latinx music. They have to be crestfallen.

Meantime, winner Jon Batiste got a big sales bounce. His album is number 1 and his single is number 2, on iTunes.

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
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