I watched and thought overall it was a good show and WAY better than some past years.
The lower ratings are most likely because (a) they barely advertised compared to past years, (b) the strike left people uneasy and disinterested since they thought it might be cancelled.
Im to lazy to do this myself, but if you look at record sales and award show ratings and everything else music related, I’d bet money that you’d find a direct correlation between current demographics and sales/ratings.
I know that the US tween and teen population peaked ‘97-00, then went into heavy bust mode, which directly correlates with the rise of the last teen pop trend and the trend going bust.
My hunch would be that our teen and early 20 demographics are probably still in bust mode, which is probably why the shows are coming in a the lower end of their historical ratings scale. I do know that the tween demo is in growth mode, which likely explains the rise of ‘Disney pop’ over the last year and a half.
I think the ratings were low because most people just don’t care. The only thing more boring is the Pro Bowl. Made for a long, bad TV day. The music industry is dying and it isn’t because of piracy, it’s because a lot of the music and musicians just plain suck.