Sunday’s Bruno Mars-loving Grammy Awards took a steep ratings spill by the first-available metrics.
The show, which ran a bloated three-and-a-half hours, was off an unfortunate 21 percent from 2017 in early numbers. Overnight returns from Nielsen Media give it a 12.7 rating among households — marking its biggest drop since the 2013, the year after the show swelled following the death of Whitney Houston.
Such a steep drop, however, could very well mean an all-time low for the calendar’s biggest music awards show once updated numbers arrive.
The 2017 overnight ratings for the Grammy Awards didn’t paint the most accurate portrait of their year-over-year performance. The 16.0 rating among households, steady with 2016, ended up translating to a not-insignificant gain of 1 million viewers. Those Grammys were the best in two years, averaging just north of 26 million viewers and earning a 7.8 rating among adults 18-49.