Since then, the complaints have quieted as many acquiesced to the fact that the Grammy telecast is essentially a marketing platform for the major record companies and a ratings boon for CBS, the network that has traditionally carried it each year.
Smaller recording organizations like the Blues Foundation in Memphis and the Americana Music Association in Nashville have stepped up their efforts to fill the gap with their own awards ceremonies, including the Blues Music Awards given out every May and the Americana Honors & Awards held each September.
Jeff McCall, a professor of media studies at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., says the show “is about creating a musical spectacle that is watchable, and the awards are just the framework in which the rest of this happens.”
