Driven by Justin Timberlake’s heavily-hyped set, the 9PM portion of Sunday’s Grammy Awards telecast delivered the night’s best ratings.
That half hour portion, which delivered an 11.1 adults 18-49 rating with 31.09 million viewers, exceeded the show’s averages of a 10.1 rating and 28.37 million viewers. It also contained the awards for Best Urban Contemporary Album, Best Pop Vocal Album and a duet between Maroon 5 and Alicia Keys.
The telecast also scored big in the 8:30-9PM and 9:30-10PM portions; both delivered a 10.7 adults 18-49 rating, with the former leading slightly in total viewers. That 8:30 segment featured the Dierks Bentley-Miranda Lambert duet, the Dick Clark tribute, a short performance from Miguel and Wiz Khalifa, the Country Solo Performance award, the Song of the Year Award and the Mumford & Sons performance.
The latter, positioned at the end, likely helped keep the momentum alive for Timberlake.
9:30PM featured Rihanna’s performance with Mikky Ekko, the award for Rap/Sung collaboration, The Black Keys’ performance, Kelly Clarkson’s performance and the award for Best Country Album.
As far as the 8-11PM portion went, the weakest segment came between 10:30PM and 11PM. Occupying that half hour were Carrie Underwood’s performance (with a brief intro performance from Hunter Hayes), the Record of the Year award, the Dave Brubeck tribute, the In Memoriam segment and the Levon Helm tribute.
