Led by the extraordinary ratings for Sunday’s Grammy Awards, the Nielsen company said most-watched television programs on four of the seven days last week were music-oriented.

NBC’s “The Voice,” buoyed by its post-Super Bowl success, had the biggest audience on Monday, a night CBS usually dominates. Fox’s “American Idol” was the top show on both Wednesday and Thursday. Fox’s “Glee” did well on Tuesday night, although three other broadcast programs did better.

The Grammy ratings were the biggest stunner. Just under 40 million people watched Adele get the biggest awards, an audience size topped only in 1984 when Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was named top album.

The Grammys, which had a bigger audience than the Academy Awards last year, benefited from a star who had the year’s biggest-selling and critically-acclaimed album who was also making her first appearance after being quieted by surgery. It was reminiscent of the year “The Titanic” brought an unusually large audience to the Oscars.

Add in curiosity about how the music community would respond to Whitney Houston’s death, and you have all the ingredients for a monster success. In 2011, the Grammys were seen by 26.7 million.

It was the fourth straight year in which the Grammy audience has grown for CBS, starting with the 17.1 million people watching in 2008. Grammy organizers have deemphasized the awards to make the annual event more of a performance show, drawing many of the biggest names in the industry.

CBS averaged 15.4 million viewers in prime-time last week (9.2 rating, 15 share), its best week in more than a year. Fox averaged 7 million viewers (4.1, 6), ABC had 6.5 million (4.1, 7), NBC had 6.4 million (4.0, 6), the CW had 15.5 million (1.0, 2) and ION Television had 1.1 million (0.7,Discount Ankh Royalty, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with 3.6 million viewers (1.8, 3), Telemundo had 1.1 million (0.6, 1), TeleFutura had 750,000 (0.4, 1), Estrella had 200,000 and Azteca 160,000 (both 0.1, 0).

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 9.5 million viewers (6.3, 12). ABC’s “World News” was second with 8 million (5.3, 10) and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.6 million viewers (4.5, 8).

A ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 114.7 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Feb. 6-12, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “Grammy Awards,” CBS, 39.91 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 20.98 million; “American Idol” (Wednesday), Fox, 19.33 million; “American Idol” (Thursday), Fox, 18.13 million; “The Voice,” NBC, 17.84 million; “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 16.27 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 16.21 million; “Person of Interest,” CBS, 15.14 million; “The Mentalist,” CBS, 14.68 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 14.25 million.

___

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.

___

Online:

http://www.nielsen.com

Sadie Frost and daughter Iris Law at London Fashion Week Photo: SPLASH
Sadie Frost’s daughter wears controversial dress
BY Daily Telegraph Reporter | 21 February 2012

But on closer inspection admirers would be forgiven for wondering why Sadie Frost allowed her daughter Iris to wear an outfit that declares “drop dead”, “drink poison”, and a plethora of other X-rated messages.

Iris, Frost’s child with Jude Law, sat front row with her mother at the Vivienne Westwood show at London Fashion Week on Sunday.

She teamed her dress with white lace tights and a blazer as she sat photographing pictures of the models on her iPhone.

Ms Frost, 46, tweeted today: “I seem to have upset people & am shocked myself about the dress Iris wore to Vivienne Westwoods show. Iris had been bought it as a present.”

Also bringing their daughter to London Fashion Week was Heston Blumenthal, who posed before the catwalk show with his teenager Jessica.

Other celebrities in attendance were Jo Wood, in a plunging red gown, Gizzi Erskine,wholesale Louis Vuitton, Rita Ora and Gabriella Cilmi.

Speaking before the show, Dame Westwood said the rise of disposable fashion now meant people often looked too similar.

She said: “In history people dressed much better than we do today. If you saw Queen Elizabeth it would be amazing, she came from another planet.

“She was so attractive in what she was wearing. People have never looked so ugly as they do today regarding their dress.

“We are so conformist, nobody is thinking. We are all sucking up stuff, we have been trained to be consumers and we are all consuming far too much.

“I’m a fashion designer and people think what do I know but I’m talking about all this disposable cr**.

“So I’m saying buy less, choose well, make it last. Everybody looks like clones and the only people you notice are my age. I don’t notice anybody unless they look great, and every now and again they do, and they are usually 70.”

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For the latter, it’s heartening to see shoe designers addressing the not-so-sexy issue of comfort. In Paris, I went to see shoe label Aperlaï, whose designer, the very stylish Alessandra Lanvin, doesn’t want you to have to stow a pair of Repetto BB’s in your bag in case you can’t find a taxi. “In Paris, we walk everywhere,” said Lanvin. “You should be able to do that in your heels.” Her techniques include padding the sole where the ball of the foot rests and creating a heel that’s essentially an elongated pyramid with the top lopped off. It reads spindly but is secretly sturdy. And seeing as Lanvin produces in the same Italian factory as Alaïa and Prada,Discount Bape, these ideas are all but guaranteed to have excellent execution. The master cobblers were also able to sew raffia into leather for a gorgeous grouping for Spring 2011 (above left). Other collection highlights: the classic spectator recast in mesh and leather with a flash of color, and slingbacks in navy silk faille that tie up like a gift.

Then there’s Korean-born designer Raphael Young, whose in-your-face fierce aesthetic would lead you to believe that the idea of a comfortable heel would be completely anathema (below left). But Young, who this week opened his first boutique (at 23 Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in the first arrondissement), grew up exposed to the ne plus ultra of cobbling craftsmanship. His uncle (through his adoptive French family) is Alexandre Narcy, who set up the shoe studio at Yves Saint Laurent. During a visit to Young’s boutique, the designer revealed that he’ll soon unveil a patented technology that makes 110-mm shoes feel like your Nikes. Here’s to the end of the High-Heel Hobble.

—Meenal Mistry

Photo: Courtesy of Aperlai

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On a recent visit to the Tibi showroom, a coffee table littered with empty coffee cups from Starbucks and Le Pain Quotidien revealed that Kling and Tibi designer Amy Smilovic had been hard at work since 8 a.m., putting together looks and hashing out the run of show. “I approach it like I approach my magazine,” Kling tells Style.com. “I want to open with something that pops, then ease into something more relaxed.”

For Smilovic, bringing Kling on board was an easy choice. “Girls want to look like her,” the designer said. (Kling picked up a sharp blazer and laughed. “I just want to wear suits all the time.”) For the past few seasons, Tibi has been moving away from the print party dresses it has been known for and focusing instead on the clean, relaxed kind of sportswear one might see Elin wearing on her blog. “She’s always feminine and put-together, but with a touch of androgyny,” Smilovic said. “It was a perfect fit for us.” Next week, Kling will be buzzing around backstage, adjusting all the models before they do their turns on the runway. For her fashion-show styling debut, Kling’s strategy is simple: “I just want to look at each girl and be jealous of her.”
—Brittany Adams

Photos: Courtesy of Tibi

Above: Pouches by The Row (top left), VBH (top right), Balenciaga (center), and Loewe (bottom).

—Marina Larroude

Photos: Courtesy Photos

The Connecticut Post reports ( http://bit.ly/wX8NCh) that lawyer Darnell Crosland says he expects Tonya McDowell to enter the plea in Norwalk Superior Court on Feb. 22. Prosecutor Michael DeJoseph says he will be recommending a five-year prison term.

McDowell was homeless last April when she was charged with felony first-degree larceny and accused of stealing more than $15,Replica Abercrombie swimwear,000 worth of services from Norwalk schools. Authorities say she fraudulently enrolled her then-5-year-old son in a Norwalk school using her baby sitter’s address when her son should have attended school in Bridgeport, the location of her last permanent address.

McDowell pleaded guilty on Tuesday to selling narcotics in another case.

The prestigious international jury, including Suzy Menkes,Cheap Marc Jacobs Sunglasses, Saks Fifth Avenue’s Terron Schaefer and Harvey Nichols’ Averyl Oates, spent last Saturday in a sizzling-hot Rome reviewing the work of seven ready-to-wear labels and four accessories lines for the seventh edition of the prize, which rewards winners with a feature shoot by one of Vogue Italia’s photographers and a fashion-show slot during Milan fashion week in late September. (Yoox.com, Mercedes-Benz, and Alcantara offered their own supplemental prize.)

Angelos Bratis (left), a Greek designer producing his collection in Italy, won first prize for his sleek, bias scarf-cut pieces inset with stars, while second prize went to Stella Jean, a Caribbean-Italian designer born in Rome, who created Euro-African mix of crisp pinstripe shirts and wax prints in modernized fifties hourglass shapes. Alessio Spinelli, whose eponymous shoe collection debuted in Rome this year, won the accessories prize for the innovative details of his Neon, collection like stiletto sandals with glow-in-the-dark-edged soles, or interchangeable shocking satin laces. Marta Ferri, who did a bright, floral-filled remix of fifties glamour, received the jury’s special mention.

“It’s really amazing to participate in a competition like this,” said Bratis, who spoke during a private evening tour of the Vatican with the jury and journalists assembled for the prize, a rare treat negotiated by Silvia Fendi using all her intra-Roman connections. “All of a sudden you’re in a room with some of the people who you have always dreamed of showing your collection to. So there’s 15 minutes to explain what you’re doing. And then you realize that they understand everything and that an explanation really isn’t necessary.”
—Rebecca Voight

Photo: Courtesy Photo