GRAMMYS TAKING
$6-8M HIT FROM NYC MOVE (REPORT)

The Recording Academy is $6m to $8m in the hole as a result of moving the Grammys to New York, Crain’s New York reported last week. Said Academy topper Neil Portnow, “It’s not over till it’s over, but there were certain levels of support that were indicated, and those goals have not yet been achieved. We’ll have to swallow the costs.”

In 2016, Julie Menin, Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, formed a host committee in 2016 to raise sponsorship dollars and negotiate discounts on labor rates in the hopes of luring the Grammys, the story recounts. CBS, Accenture and Pepsi wrote checks to ease the cost burdens. In all, Menin said she’d secured nearly $5m in contributions, concessions and advertising.

“The city had a list of ways they believed money could be raised to make it feasible [for the Grammys to be in New York], and that’s pretty much what we relied upon,” Portnow acknowledged to Variety in a follow-up story. “It hasn’t quite turned out that way.”

But Portnow contested the term “over budget,” describing the shortfall as “the delta of difference between holding the same Grammy Week in New York versus Los Angeles.”

“The show is really looking good, but it’s a challenge,” Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich acknowledged to Variety. “Everything just costs more to do in New York versus Los Angeles, in terms of facilities, stagehands, hotel rooms, transportation, general expenses of the show—all of which we account for, but it’s just a different animal.”