Retailers rue Grammys’ schedule

You’d think anything that focuses attention on the music business would be good news for those in the business of selling music. But, as Ira Gershwin once put it, it ain’t necessarily so.

Take the annual Grammy nominations, which will be announced Tuesday. Typically, they’ve started the ball rolling toward the award show itself, piquing consumers’ interest in the nominated artists, especially any in the top categories (record, album, song, new artist) or those with multiple nominations.

Record retailers long considered the nomination announcement a godsend during the slow days of January that traditionally follow the December selling frenzy.

But as of last year, that pattern changed when the Grammy ceremony was moved ahead nearly a month to avoid coinciding with the rescheduled Academy Awards.

The ripple effect means the sales bump usually felt in January by Grammy-nominated artists may have flattened now that the announcement comes early in December, during the height of the year-end battle of superstar releases.

“We don’t need the help now,” says Bob Feterl, Tower Records’ Southwest region director. “I’d much rather see the announcement in January.”

Now, Feterl says, any sales fallout from Grammy announcements “is difficult to gauge, unless it’s something from a small label, an odd genre or some left-field choice that nobody expects. Then you see the impact in immediate sales. [In December,] business is building anyway, so you can’t easily tell on a big record” if a Grammy nomination has any effect on sales.

The biggest boon to sales, of course, stems from the Grammy Awards show itself, to be held this year on Feb. 13 at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Performers on the national telecast and big winners, especially newcomers, have seen major impact at the cash register from Grammy wins, including Alicia Keys and Norah Jones, who are likely to find themselves nominees again come Tuesday.

-- Randy Lewis