NEAR TRUTHS: OF MICE AND MEDIA
THE TYLER ADMINISTRATION: It’s been a stellar rollout for Columbia’s Tyler, the Creator, whose CHROMAKOPIA is being called a career milestone by insiders and aficionados. His management team, led by 4 Strikes’ Christian and Kelly Clancy, has overseen the trailblazing artist’s career for a long time and helped him develop one of the most distinctive, inventive brands in the biz. His AEG-promoted, thoughtfully curated Flog Gnaw fest, meanwhile, will be gigantic, and the on-sale for his global tour has been astounding, with nearly 1m tickets sold.
SHE BURNS BRIGHTLY: Gracie Abrams is turning into a big story. The Interscope pop breakout, assiduously cultivated by the formidable artist-development machine of John Janick and team, is locked in and poised to advance to the next level. Her The Secret of Us set has occasioned no small amount of Grammy buzz.
GRAMMY TO THE MOUSE HOUSE: The Grammys’ just-announced, 10-year deal with Disney, which will see the awards show air on ABC, Hulu and Disney+ starting in 2027, will mark the beginning of an interesting new chapter for Music’s Biggest Night, which—in addition to a certain famous mouse and friends—joins such cultural touchstones as Marvel, Star Wars, The Muppets and The Simpsons in Disney’s gargantuan portfolio. Reports value the pact at north of $500m.
Grammy’s TV partner since 1973 has been CBS. In 2016, attorney Joel Katz spearheaded a 10-year deal for the show with the Eye valued at $70m per year. Jack Sussman, who has figured prominently in the telecast for years, left the network this year after participating in his final Grammys. He was succeeded there by Mackenzie Mitchell, who’ll run point for CBS until the transition. Ben Winston, Raj Kapoor and Jesse Collins took the reins from longtime producer Ken Ehrlich in 2021, and their approach (including the clever addition of stars at tables near the stage) has goosed the ratings significantly.
Disney Co-Chair Dana Walden is a brilliant executive whose team can clearly make a difference—the Grammys would appear to be in very good hands after a tumultuous few years of Sherry Redstone’s rule at Viacom.
To negotiate this massive pact, the Academy looked to Bobby Rosenbloum, Greenberg Traurig’s Chairman, Global Entertainment & Media Practice and a lawyer’s lawyer who’s been behind the scenes overseeing so many top-tier agreements over the last 30 years that we’d run out of ink trying to catalog them. Rosenbloum is highly respected not only by his partners at the firm but his peers throughout the biz.
Grammy’s recent history has been marked by some bumpy terrain, not least for erstwhile Academy CEO Neil Portnow, whose remark about the need for women artists to “step up” in order to achieve greater recognition at the Grammys ignited a storm of outrage and led to his exit.
Portnow’s successor, Deb Dugan, was drummed out after ruffling feathers among Academy lifers regarding how things worked behind the scenes. She was followed in the top job by the decidedly more politic Harvey Mason Jr., whose tenure has been marked by a diversification of the Academy’s membership and some attempts—with varying degrees of success—to reform the awards process. In any event, it remains true that Grammys Gonna Grammy, but come 2027, they will be doing so in the company of Mickey, Iron Man and Chewbacca. The Grammys will air live for the penultimate time on CBS from L.A.’s Crypto.com Arena on 2/2.
