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The Grammys telecast moves to Disney from CBS under new 10-year deal

Taylor Swift at the 66th Grammy Awards held at the Crypto.com Arena
Taylor Swift at the 66th Grammy Awards held at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Feb. 4, 2024.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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The Recording Academy’s annual Grammys telecast will move to several Disney broadcast and streaming properties in 2027.

The Grammys, a five-decade fixture at CBS (and more recently Paramount+), will be broadcast simultaneously across ABC, Hulu and Disney+ under the new 10-year arrangement.

“We are completely thrilled to be bringing ‘The GRAMMYS’ and other new music programming to the Disney ecosystem,” said Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. in a statement. “We are grateful to our long-standing partners at CBS and now honored to be joining with Disney, an iconic company where creators have always been at the forefront. This partnership represents another important milestone in the Academy’s transformation and growth, and strengthens our ability to fulfill our mission of uplifting and serving music people around the world.”

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Disney Entertainment Co-Chairman Dana Walden said that “As The Walt Disney Company combines forces with The Recording Academy to open this exciting new chapter in the history of ‘The Grammys,’ we do so with pride and gratitude. Live events have never been more important to our culture and industry, and we just acquired one of the crown jewels, adding to our portfolio of world-class programming across all genres.”

The partnership will also include development of new Grammy-centric music specials and TV productions, according to Disney.

Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, discusses his efforts to diversify the Grammy Awards’ electorate ahead of next year’s ceremony.

The change in the Grammys’ broadcast home comes at a time of sweeping change in the Academy’s composition. The Academy has, in recent years, added 3,000 new women voting members as it turned over some of its 13,000-strong legacy membership. Up to two-thirds of the musicians who will vote on next year’s Grammy Awards were not members of the Recording Academy as recently as 2018.

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In a recent Recording Academy report, the share of academy members who identify as people of color has increased 65% since 2019, while the percentage of women has grown 27%.

“What we’re doing is we’re looking at the membership that we have, and we’re comparing that to what’s going on in our music community — who’s making the music, what’s their gender, what’s their age, what’s their ethnicity,” Mason said in an interview. “And then we’re trying to make sure that our membership is representative of that.”

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