The Ratings For The 2013 Grammy Awards Dropped 28 Percent This Year

Did you watch the 2013 Grammy Awards on Sunday night? Did everyone you know watch them? Better yet, did you all get together and watch them at a Grammy party? If so, you weren't alone. More than 28 million people watched the 55th Grammy Awards on Sunday night when they were broadcast live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles. But, even still, the Grammy Awards audience was down a staggering 28 percent compared to last year when almost 40 million people tuned in to watch them.

So, why was the number so low this year? Well, don't worry: It's not because the Grammys are getting less popular. Back in 2011, the 53rd Grammy Awards also drew in about 28 million viewers. But, after the tragic death of Whitney Houston last year, the 54th Grammy Awards got a huge boost with more people than usual tuning in to see how the Grammy organizers would handle the show.

"There's a lot of conjecture, but I think it's safe to say that interest in the show went up last year because Whitney Houston died just before the event," Katz Media Group TV industry analyst Bill Carroll told the New York Daily News yesterday. "Last year, it went up so dramatically because viewers probably were tuning in just to see what was going to happen. They were assuming—and rightly so—that there would be a memorial tribute during the show and they wanted to know, just in general, how her death would affect the telecast."

Thus, everyone watched the Grammys last year. Less people watched this year, but Katz says that 28 million viewers is still a great turnout for an event like the Grammys.

"All things said," he told the Daily News, "I think CBS has to be pretty pleased with the numbers they got."