The 2021 Grammys featured some iconic moments this year, with Beyoncé surpassing Alison Krauss as the most-awarded woman artist in history and Taylor Swift becoming the first woman to win three Album of the Year awards, tying with Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon for the most ever. Despite these historic moments, this year’s Grammys had lackluster ratings and is projected to achieve record low viewership by the time the counts are tallied tomorrow.
According to Nielsen‘s early reports, the show pulled in an average of 7.88 million viewers with a 1.9 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic, which is a key figure for advertisers. This is less than half of the viewership for last year’s event, which tallied up 18.69 million and a 5.4 rating upon the release of its final numbers. While the official counts are expected tomorrow, the figure isn’t expected to increase that much, as the 7.88 million figure includes people livestreaming the event.
This trend appears to be part of a larger drop-off in viewership affecting Awards shows. The 2021 Golden Globes recorded only 6.9 million viewers, which was a 63 percent drop from the 18.4 million who saw the 2020 event. These trends are some of the largest drops in viewership, which has been steadily happening to award shows for years.
This year’s Grammys took place virtually, with many performers performing their parts in their home recording studios. One iconic performance involved Kamasi Washington, Grace Potter, and Gregory Porter, who paid tribute to the 50th anniversary of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On in the premiere ceremony.
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