Grammy Awards Hit 12-Year Low in TV Viewers

At Sunday’s ceremony, the 18-year-old singer Billie Eilish won big, taking home the top awards for album, new artist, record and song of the year, the first time in 39 years that an artist had swept the four top prizes.

The awards show threatened to be overshadowed by the news of Kobe Bryant’s death, which hit the internet hours before show time. Outside the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles — the longtime home of the Grammys, and Mr. Bryant’s stage for most of his career as a Los Angeles Laker — a vigil emerged, with mourners in Bryant jerseys.

Toward the start of the show, Alicia Keys, the host, acknowledged “feeling crazy sadness right now.”

“We’re literally standing here heartbroken in the house that Kobe Bryant built,” she said.

Tensions within the Recording Academy, the nonprofit organization that oversees the Grammy Awards, provided another distraction. Ten days before the show, the Recording Academy suspended its chief executive, Deborah Dugan, who had joined the organization in August, saying she had been accused of bullying by an assistant and then sought a $22 million payout to leave quietly, a charge Ms. Dugan denied. Ms. Dugan accused the academy last week of retaliation because of her efforts at investigating sexual harassment and voting irregularities within the group.

CBS did not disclose how many people watched Sunday night’s ceremony on its CBS All Access streaming service but said on Monday that it “marked the most-streamed Grammys on the service to date.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/business/media/grammy-awards-ratings.html?emc=rss&partner=rss