newsmakers

newsmakers

Grammy awards pull strong ratings

NEW YORK

Though the Grammy Awards couldn’t come close to the freakishly high ratings generated in 2012 because of Whitney Houston’s death and Adele’s smashing success, this year’s show had the second-largest audience for the program since 1993.

The Nielsen company said Monday that music’s annual awards show was seen by 28.4 million people Sunday night on CBS.

The music academy’s decision to turn the televised Grammys into more of a showcase than an awards show appears to be bearing fruit. The show’s audience was nearly 2 million higher than the 26.7 million who watched in 2011. From 2005 to 2009, the Grammy Awards audience fluctuated from 17 million to 20 million viewers.

Last year, 39.9 million people tuned in to see how the industry would react to Houston’s death just before the awards and celebrate the coronation of its hottest star, Adele, who won six Grammys.

Former jailed student will talk to ABC News

NEW YORK

Amanda Knox, the college junior who spent four years in an Italian prison after being accused of murdering her British roommate, is telling her story to ABC News.

The network says the exclusive interview will air on a prime-time special April 30.

It also will be featured on other ABC News programming.

Knox was an American student studying in Italy when, in 2007, she became the center of a murder case that seized the world’s attention.

She was convicted in 2009. But after an appeal, she was acquitted and released in October 2011.

Vindicator wire services