Grammys 2016: Adele set to perform and what the new live format will mean

Music artists Adele and the Weeknd are among the performers who will be taking the stage at next month’s Grammy Awards.

Kendrick Lamar and the country music group Little Big Town will also reportedly be performing during the ceremony. 

All except Adele are nominated for at least one Grammy prize, as Adele’s newest album “25” was not released in time to qualify. (For this past year, an album had to come out between Oct. 1, 2014 and Sept. 30, 2015 to make the cut.)

Lamar scored the most nominations of any artist, including nods for his album “To Pimp A Butterfly” and his track “Alright.” 

Ratings for the Grammys last year were a bit troubled in comparison to past shows – the ceremony, which included performances by Beyonce, Sam Smith, Kanye West, Paul McCartney, and Rihanna, drew more than 25 million viewers this past year, the lowest ratings for the ceremony in six years. However, the Grammys still draw far more viewers than other music awards shows such as the MTV Video Music Awards or the American Music Awards. 

The Grammys ratings for the year were in between some of the other big awards shows, garnering more viewers than the Emmy and Tony Awards but not as many as the Oscars. 

And another recent announcement by those who organize the Grammys answered the question: What do the Grammys and the British TV show “Sherlock” have in common?

Both recently changed the way their program is aired so viewers can experience the content at the same time. For the first time this year, the Grammys will air live across the country rather than the show airing three hours late in the Mountain and Pacific time zones.

The delay on the West Coast has come up in the past, particularly the fact that with the ubiquity of social media, most West Coast viewers usually learned who won online. 

“Between social media and the round-the-clock Web coverage of entertainment, there’s no element of surprise left for Pacific coast music fans,” Entertainment Weekly writer Lynette Rice wrote. 

Meanwhile, Joy Press of the Los Angeles Times found that “the West Coast time delay was hugely frustrating to Californians.”

But Nielsen data found that the Grammys generated the most tweets of any “special event” between September 2014 and May 2015. Perhaps that decline in ratings this past year prompted those behind the Grammys to try to get more people watching at the same time rather than checking in later on. 

British shows like “Downton Abbey” and “Sherlock” faced complaints from viewers when a new season would premiere in Britain months before it appeared in America. American fans attempting to avoid spoilers were sometimes angered when a plot twist was revealed online.

This year for the first time, an episode of “Sherlock” – the program’s Victorian-set special “Sherlock: The Abominable Bride” – aired in Britain and the US on the same day, Jan. 1.

Apparently those behind the Grammys decided to follow in the detective’s footsteps.