By Mark Kennedy, Entertainment Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --An average of 16.9 million viewers tuned in to see performances by Miley Cyrus and Billie Eilish and watch Taylor Swift make history at the Grammy Awards on Sunday, the largest audience for the telecast in four years and another consecutive annual increase for a show that is recovering from its pandemic declines.
Ratings were up 34% on Sunday across CBS, Paramount+ and other digital platforms from last year, and with delayed watching included was expected to amass over 17 million viewers. The telecast peaked with 18.25 million viewers during the In-Memoriam segment, with performances by Stevie Wonder, Annie Lennox, Jon Batiste and Fantasia Barrino.
The numbers Sunday easily beat the 12.4 million people who tuned in to watch Harry Styles, Lizzo and Bad Bunny perform during the show in 2023, along with a tribute to 50 years of rap history.
That's another year of growth seen under host Trevor Noah, who has hosted since 2021. Live viewership was 8.8 million in 2021 and 8.9 million in 2022. The numbers this year are closer to pre-pandemic levels: Music's showcase night was seen by 18.7 million people in 2020.
The upward trajectory is in stark contrast to the fate of the Emmy Awards earlier this year: That telecast on Fox reached a record low audience of 4.3 million viewers.
This year, Grammy viewers watched Miley Cyrus powerfully belt out her megahit "Flowers, which won record of the year, and Billie Eilish's gentle piano ballad from "Barbie," "What Was I Made For?," which was crowned song of the year. The album "Midnights" earned Swift her fourth career Grammy for album of the year, a record.
Live television viewership has declined across-the-board over the past few years, with pro football one of the few events to buck the trend.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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