Grammy Interest Drives E! Red Carpet Coverage to Record Ratings

The 2012 music kudos' huge draw saw the network's "Life from the Red Carpet," punctuated by interviews about the late Whitney Houston, pull in 4 million viewers.

12:29 PM PST 2/13/2012 by Michael O'Connell

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Nicki Minaj Pope Grammy Red Carpet - P 2012

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Nicki Minaj on the Grammy red carpet

This year's Grammys weren't just good business for CBS.

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Two-hours' worth of red carpet coverage from E! gave the network its most-watched pre-awards telecast ever on Sunday night, scoring more than 4 million viewers.

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In addition to a huge gain in the time slot (five times the average of the previous four weeks), Live from the Red Carpet grew 40 percent from last year's Grammys.

No doubt affected by the interest in guests' remembrances of the late Whitney Houston, the broadcast brought in 2.1 million among adults 18-49 and 1.5 million among women in the age group.

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The Ryan Seacrest and Guiliana Rancic hosted coverage grew 70 percent between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. It now sits in the top 10 telecasts in E! history.

Grammy spoils also extended to the web. The network reports that E! Online delivered a new record high for the day of an event in daily unique visitors, page views and video plays.