NEW YORK (AP) – Grammy producers avoided the strangeness of Zoom from other pandemic-era award shows and gave music-hungry fans presentations from the industry’s biggest stars. And the spectators still stayed away.
The CBS Grammy broadcast reached 9.2 million viewers – television and streaming – on Sunday, the lowest number ever recorded and a steep 51% drop from last year, Nielsen said.
This followed a 63% drop in Golden Globe ratings a few weeks ago and a record low rating for the Emmy Awards last fall.
This is enough for television executives to worry about whether this is just related to the pandemic or whether they can no longer depend on these traditional events to get attention. The Oscar, which will be released next month on ABC, has often been the most watched television event of the year after the Super Bowl.
There are several factors, including the decline of open TV in general and the fragmentation of entertainment: there are fewer films, TV shows and music that unite society. Social media also allows fans to watch the highlights of an award later, instead of watching the full event, which at Sunday’s Grammy lasted almost four hours.
For the Grammy, the drop in ratings came despite the general opinion that it was a well-produced event.
CBS won the week, with an average of 4.9 million primetime viewers. NBC had 4 million, ABC had 3.4 million, Fox had 2.6 million, Univision had 1.4 million, Ion Television had 1.2 million and Telemundo had 1 million.
The Fox News channel led the cable networks, averaging 2.45 million viewers in prime time. MSNBC had 1.84 million, CNN had 1.29 million, HGTV had 1.15 million and ESPN had 1.06 million.
ABC’s “World News Tonight” won the race for nightly news ratings, averaging 8.9 million viewers. NBC’s Nightly News had 7.3 million and CBS Evening News had 5.3 million.
For the week of March 8 to 14, the top 20 programs, their networks and views:
1. “NCIS”, CBS, 9.78 million.
2. “Grammy Awards”, CBS, 9.23 million.
3. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 8.14 million.
4. “FBI”, CBS, 7.66 million.
5. “Chicago Med,” NBC, 7.571 million.
6. “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 7.57 million.
7. “Chicago Fire,” NBC, 7.04 million.
8. “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 6.89 million.
9. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 6.49 million.
10. “President Biden’s Address to Nation,” ABC, 6.34 million.
11. “911”, Fox, 6.28 million.
12. “FBI: Most Wanted,” CBS, 6.15 million.
13. “Chicago PD,” NBC, 5.89 million.
14. “President Biden’s Address to Nation,” CBS, 5.83 million.
15. “The Masked Singer”, Fox, 5.66 million.
16. “The Neighborhood”, CBS, 5.62 million.
17. “American Idol”, ABC, 5.5 million.
18. “Station 19,” ABC, 5.41 million.
19. “911: Lone Star,” Fox, 5.36 million.
20. “Bob Hearts Abishola,” CBS, 5.21 million.