The 3 1/2-hour CBS live broadcast of the recording industry's highest honors averaged 17.5 million American viewers, down 2.5 million from the Grammys' 2007 television audience, Nielsen Media Research reported on Monday.
Sunday's show will go down as the least watched Grammys in two years.
The Grammys' biggest competition this year came from a two-hour episode of the ABC reality show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," which averaged about 15.8 million viewers.
Last year, a Justin Timberlake-driven ceremony averaged 20.1 million, then the show's best numbers in three years.
Sunday's Grammys appears to have done best in the 9 p.m. half hour, around the time the Foo Fighters rocked the outdoor stage. For those 30 minutes, the show averaged 20.1 million viewers.
The awards extravaganza likely suffered from a viewership slump that hit TV as a whole this season, in part due to a glut of reruns, game shows and reality shows caused by the Hollywood writers strike. But award shows also have seen a general ratings decline in recent years. (Britney anyone?)
No Justin, no entertainment. Janet didn't perform (I didn't even see her), Michael Jackson didn't even show, and this was supposed to be the 50th anniversary celebration??? Please.
The only thing that even kept me in the least bit interested in that boring ass show was the Beyonce/Tina Turner and somewhat the Rihanna/Morris Day performances.
I seriously think the producers and crews don't even care anymore. It's as if they just put on these shows for publicity and focus on one or two "controversial" celebrities at the time. I bet this will teach them to start taking award shows seriously again. *rolls eyes*
I don't even understand some of these award shows anymore. I remember ten years ago, it used to be a much classier event with over-the-top outstanding performances and well-deserved winners (of course Amy deserved everything she got, but some of those other categories made no sense at all).
Nowadays, it seems everybody's settling for mediocrity.
The Grammys were pretty good this year IMO... but I think that the way in which the show was organized made it seem worse than it actually was... Good performances were lumped together, some of the best performances (like Cirque du Soleil/Across the Universe) were presented way too early, and most underwhelming performances were kept towards the end... Still a good show, though.
