• by Wayne Friedman , February 12, 2008

Although all the stars seemingly aligned for the "Grammy Awards" on CBS, the network grabbed less-stellar value than expected.

The "Grammy Awards" scored a preliminary Nielsen 6.9 rating among 18-49 viewers--steeply down 17% from a year ago, when it earned an 8.3 rating. The final numbers may mean the Grammys earned its lowest viewership numbers in more than a decade.

The Grammy Awards came after drastically lower ratings of other award shows--"The Golden Globes" and "The People's Choice Awards"--which were struck by the Writers Guild of America.

The Grammys was not a struck show by the WGA, and as such, big-name music and TV and film stars attended the event. Because of the dearth of high-profile entertainment shows, some analysts expected the Grammys to score high viewership.

But other analysts say the Grammys earned lower viewership numbers because viewers weren't entirely aware of it--partly because of the writers' strike.

"Some of this was from the overall fallout from the strike," said David Scardino, entertainment specialist for Santa Monica, Calif. media agency RPA. "They are not getting the same promotional oomph. Network stuff is down across the board." Last year, CBS also had the Super Bowl to push out Grammy TV program promos.

In looking at total viewers, the Grammys were down 18.2 million, from 20 million last year. Other low-number years were 17 million in 2006 and 17.3 million in 1995. The Grammys were moved to Sunday night last year because the show was pitted against Fox juggernaut "American Idol" in 2006. That allowed it to add some 3 million viewers to the telecast in 2007.

No matter. The Grammys didn't improve from a year ago--and faced some stiff competition from an unusual program: ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," which earned a better-than-average 6.1 rating at 9 p.m.

CBS still led for the Sunday night, winning among viewers 18-49 with a 5.8 rating/14 share. ABC came in at a decent second place, with a 4.3/10. Fox was next at a 3.2/8. NBC earned a 2.1/5; Univision was at 1.1/3; and CW finished at 0.3/1.

Some notables of the evening: A first place for Fox's final hour of the NFL Pro Bowl, which scored a 3.2 at 7 p.m., while ABC came in at second place at 7 p.m. for "America's Funniest Home Videos." At 10 p.m., NBC came in at second place with a 3.3 rating for "Brothers & Sisters."