Idolator

The promise of seeing Tina Turner perform with Beyonce—and other generational boundaries get kicked in, or at least gently hip-checked—wasn't as much of a turn-on for Joe Television Viewer as executives at CBS thought it would be: Numbers for this year's Grammy telecast were off 12% from last year, and down an astonishing 18.82% among adults 18-49. (Well, OK, those numbers aren't that astonishing given the corresponding drop in album sales this year. But still, not good!) So what happened? Was it the booking? Were the bus ads with just photos of Paul McCartney and Dave Grohl too subtle for potential viewers—and kind of embarrassing for the producers, since Macca wasn't even at the telecast? Or is it just another example of music falling somewhere below ice hockey in terms of pastimes in which Americans are interested—and the music industry doing its damndest to keep its profile plummeting? After the jump, I count down the top five issues faced by last night's telecast, from poor advertising to ill-advised demographic-chasing. More »