Awards season has kicked off. This year, the Grammy Awards aimed to follow up its best viewing numbers since the pandemic, and respond to the deadly wildfires that swept across Los Angeles earlier this month.
Nominees included Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Billie Eilish, which is a major boost to streaming and sales numbers.
The Grammy Awards bring US$82 million into Los Angeles each year, the Recording Academy said in 2017.
UPDATE: Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter has won Album of the Year at the Grammys, while Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us prevailed in both Song of the Year and Record of the Year.
The full list of Grammy nominations and wins can be found here, while today's major category wins have been updated by broadcasting partner CBS.
The Academy and friends
The Grammy Awards have a long-standing broadcasting deal with CBS. CBS has paid the Recording Academy, the Grammys’ parent organisation, US$20 million each year to show the event since 2017.
The 2024 Grammy Awards saw the event’s largest number of viewers since 2020, peaking with 18.25 million viewers in the United States. Around 2.26 million Australian viewers watched either the live telecast or its evening re-run.
While 2020’s ceremony posted 18.7 million viewers in the U.S., viewer numbers slumped to a record low of just 9.22 million in 2021. Numbers were slow to recover, with 9.5 million tuning in for the 2022 ceremony.
Disney struck a deal last year to broadcast the Grammys on ABC, Hulu, and Disney+ from 2027 to 2036.
The Academy also committed to expanding last year, adding programs to promote and support musicians in the Middle East and Africa. The Grammys introduced a Best African Music Performance award at the 2024 event.
“The Middle East and Africa are two of the fastest-growing regions, demographically, when it comes to younger populations, when it comes to creative output, and when it comes to industry growth,” said Academy president Panos Panay. "This expansion into the MENA region is a natural fit simply for the fact that music is now a truly globalized art form that is not limited by language or culture.”
The Recording Academy is backed by sponsors including IBM, Mastercard, and United Airlines. IBM will contribute a new artificial intelligence agent to this year’s awards to add data and insights to the event’s social media strategy.
The Grammys boost
A Grammy win, nomination, or performance can give an artist a major bump in music sales. After Jon Batiste’s We Are won Album of the Year in 2022, the record notched its best ever week on the charts at #25 — a 2,746% jump in sales.
Following Taylor Swift’s Album of the Year win for Midnights in 2024, the album saw a weekly jump of 35% across both streaming and sales.
Fourteen songs performed during the 2024 Grammy Awards posted an increase of at least 5% in streams, including songs not shown during the main televised ceremony.
Streams of Tracy Chapman’s discography soared by 217% the week after performing “Fast Car” with Luke Combs at the 2024 Grammys. Her song sales totaled 50,000, up 5,909% from the previous week.
After the wildfires
The awards will be drastically re-tooled this year following the Los Angeles wildfires this month. This year’s event “will carry a renewed sense of purpose: raising additional funds to support wildfire relief efforts and honoring the bravery and dedication of first responders who risk their lives to protect ours,” according to Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. and Board of Trustees chair Tammy Hurt.
Just four pre-Grammys Recording Academy events will go ahead, and these will incorporate fundraising efforts. “With the upcoming Grammy Weekend events, including the MusiCares Persons of the Year gala on Friday, January 31, we have a meaningful opportunity to come together as a community to raise critical funds for the music professionals who need us most,” Laura Segura, executive director of the Recording Academy's charity MusiCares, tells Azzet.
“The Grammy telecast and the Premiere Ceremony are also going to look and feel very different,” said Mason. “The performances are being reimagined throughout. You can be sure it’s not going to be a typical Grammy party atmosphere. We are scaling back on the some of the red-carpet.”
The Recording Academy and MusiCares donated US$1 million to wildfire relief, and have distributed over $2 million in aid through additional contributions.
“The devastation caused by the Los Angeles wildfires has affected so many in our music family, and MusiCares has already received over 2,600 requests for assistance. We’re providing immediate support — US$1,500 in financial aid and $500 grocery cards — to those impacted, while also addressing the deeper challenges many face, from medical needs to rebuilding their lives after losing so much,” Segura says.
“Artists and celebrities are central nodes in social networks, as they have connections with a large number of followers. This centrality can be much more impactful compared to their charitable contribution, as they can increase the social capital of impacted communities,” says Nader Naderpajouh, head of the University of Sydney’s School of Project Management.
“In this sense, they connect the communities to other networks who can provide a range of diverse resources. It is now known in the research that social capital is fundamental to response and recovery activities, and art communities can substantially increase social capital by simply raising the awareness.”
Major music companies, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Music Group have cancelled Grammy-related events this year.
Universal Music Group said it would redirect its resources for these events to wildfire relief. “We are committed to helping and supporting the music community, our artists, our teams and the people of Los Angeles get through this horrific episode,” the company said.
“With increasing observation of impact of disasters on major events, the organisers are constantly updating their risk registers to prepare for potential impacts and what they can do,” Naderpajouh tells Azzet.
