Did Last-Minute Whitney Houston Tribute Affect 2012 Grammy Ratings?

It was a night that started with a heartfelt prayer for one of music’s biggest stars, and went on to celebrate one of the few musicians who can even come close to matching her formidable talent. Whitney and Adele. Last night’s Grammy’s were all about the voice. We kind of figured that more people would tune in for the Grammy’s this year, and boy, did they.

As Adele swept the Grammy’s, winning all of the six awards for which she was nominated, the music industry paid tribute to Houston, whose shocking death came just a day before the ceremony. With extremely short notice, the tributes came from personal reflections, and a touching rendition of “I Will Always Love You” by yet another powerful voice, Jennifer Hudson.

Interestingly, according to our numbers, the most-watched moment of the night wasn’t a Whitney tribute, but Rihanna and Coldplay’s performance of “We Found Love” and “Princess of China.” Don’t worry though – Jennifer Hudson’s stirring tribute did make the list. Here are TiVo’s Top Five most-watched moments from last night’s Grammy Awards:

1.  Rihanna and Coldplay’s performance of “We Found Love” and “Princess of China”

2.  Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson’s duet of “Don’t You Wanna Stay”

3.  Adele winning the first award of the night: Best Pop Solo Performance for “Someone Like You”

4.  Adele’s captivating performance of “Rolling in the Deep” at 10:06 p.m.

5.  The touching Whitney Houston “I Will Always Love You” tribute by Jennifer Hudson

Did you tune into the Grammy’s? What did you think of how they handled Whitney’s memory? Was it enough, or will you tune into the BET awards this summer for more? And tell us…did Nicki Minaj freak you out like she did the rest of the Twitterverse?

*This information was prepared using aggregated, anonymous, second-by-second audience measurement data analyzing how TiVo subscribers watched the February 12 Grammy Award telecast in a live and time-shifted mode. TiVo’s audience measurement analysis is based on anonymous, aggregated data from a sample of approximately 375,000 households with the Emmy-award winning TiVo® service.