Photo Credit: Sudhith Xavier
Grammy viewership recovers from pandemic nadirs, with 12.4 million tuning in to watch.
The 2023 Grammy Awards saw a 30% increase in viewership from the 2022 show, with 12.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen data of its live CBS broadcast and livestream on Paramount+. The show marked milestones, with Beyonce collecting the most Grammy wins of all time with 32 and Kim Petras becoming the first transgender woman to win Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.
The ceremony marked the largest audience for the awards show since 2020, when the broadcast brought in 18.8 million viewers, slightly below the 2019 edition’s viewership of 19.9 million. Grammy viewership faltered significantly in 2021, falling by nearly half its previous low of 17 million in 2006, with 9.59 million viewers. The 2021 ceremony was notable as the first in-person Grammys show following the COVID pandemic.
The online broadcast hit 66 billion potential impressions, ranking it as “the number one social entertainment event of 2023,” according to CBS. By Monday morning, people had consumed 53 million video clips from the ceremony via CBS and Paramount’s platforms across social media.
The 65th annual Grammy Awards, hosted for the third year in a row by Trevor Noah, hit its largest live-streaming audience across CBS platforms with a 33% increase from last year’s awards. The show also celebrated the 50th anniversary of hip-hop with a star-studded performance featuring Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliott, Queen Latifah, Nelly, Method Man, Ice-T, Public Enemy, Rakim, Run-DMC, Wu-Tang Clan, Salt-N-Pepa, and more.
Additionally, this year’s show featured several notable performances, including Lizzo, Harry Styles, Kim Petras, and Sam Smith. Rapper Quavo honored the late Migos member Takeoff with a heartfelt rendition of “Without You.”
Beyonce made history this year as she broke the record for the most Grammy-awarded artist in history, while Styles took home the highly coveted Album of the Year award for Harry’s House. Meanwhile, Lizzo finally managed to snag a coveted trademark for her lyric from “Truth Hurts.”