The nonprofit Recording Academy had a controversial 2019, but it still averaged annual revenue of $82 million over the last three years.
The way you do anything is the way you do everything.
Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of Recording Academy, the organization that puts on the annual Grammy Awards, frequently uses the saying, which means to give maximum effort at all times. Such intensity has its drawbacks. “It drives my wife crazy,” Mason tells Forbes.
The 66th annual Grammy Awards show will take place on February 4 in Los Angeles, and Mason, 55, is all-in on repairing the integrity of the show after controversy struck the Recording Academy in 2019. There were allegations of wrongdoing, including sexual harassment, and a C-suite restructuring that ended in a financial settlement to former CEO Deborah Dugan. The Academy also faced backlash after notable stars like Kendrick Lamar declined invitations to attend the Grammys, and winners’ speeches, including Drake’s, were cut short.
In May 2021, Mason was named Recording Academy CEO, becoming the first Black person to hold the role. Mason tells Forbes that the nonprofit has revamped itself, eliminating its secret voting and expanding membership. The Academy has 11,000 voting members, of whom 19% identify as Black.
“We’re a very different organization than we were four or five years ago,” Mason says. “I hope we’re starting to build that relevance back.”
Don’t Compromise
A Boston native, Mason moved to Los Angeles as a child and was closely tied to music at an early age. His father, Harvey Mason Sr., was a drummer for the jazz band Fourplay, led by accomplished pianist Bob James. Mimicking his dad, the young Harvey practiced writing songs at the family piano and received his first taste of production credit when a tune he created, “Love Makes It Better,” was used by the late saxophonist Grover Washington Jr. and appeared on his 1976 album, “A Secret Place.” After graduating from Crescenta Valley High School, Mason played basketball at the University of Arizona under coach Lute Olson. One of his teammates was Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr. After college, Mason caught a gigantic break in the late 1990s by producing a song for R&B star Brandy. Mason also worked with icons Athena Franklin and Whitney Houston and spent 18 months with the king of pop, Michael Jackson.
“They don’t settle,” Mason says of the music legends. “They don’t compromise. Michael absolutely did that. He thought, ‘OK, you’ve done your best. Now erase all that, start over, and do your best plus ten.’”
The Future Is Evolving
The Recording Academy brought in $89.3 million in 2022 and $73 million the year prior. In 2020, the Academy’s total revenue was more than $85 million. Most of the money comes from Paramount Global, which owns CBS and pays more than $20 million annually in fees to air the Grammys. CBS has broadcast the awards show for over 50 years.
Over the last decade, the Grammys grew accustomed to luring between 20 million and 30 million people annually. But viewership has dipped since 2019. Last year, the Grammys averaged 12.4 million viewers, up from just 8.9 million in 2022 and 8.8 million viewers the year prior. In 2020, the Grammys averaged 18.7 million, but that’s down from the roughly 20 million people that watched in 2019. Still, CBS makes nearly $100 million in advertising revenue from the Grammys, the second-most-watched awards show behind the Oscars. Mason signaled there would be tweaks.
“The future of media and content is quickly evolving,” he says. “People aren’t generally sitting around watching TV the way they used to, and we can see something in the future that would potentially be a multiplicity of ways somebody could watch the show.
“All that,” Mason adds, “will need to be worked out.”
View the video to hear more from the Recording Academy CEO.
