Grammys may head back to New York

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- After a four-year hiatus, it looks like the Grammys may be returning to New York.

Officials at the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, which sponsors the Grammys, declined to comment on rumors of a move that have rumbled throughout the industry for a few weeks and surfaced in published reports Thursday.

However, NARAS officials did say a "major announcement" will be made next Wednesday at Madison Square Garden.

A move back to Gotham would coincide with a changing of the guard in New York's City Hall, since Grammys chief Michael Greene had not seen eye to eye with former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani since a highly public feud in 1998.

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Back then, Greene berated one of Giuliani's aides, creating a rift that drove the awards show back to Los Angeles only two years after Giuliani had lured it to New York. The show alternated between the two cities for the past decade or so.

New York's new mayor, Michael Bloomberg, however, would appear to be far more amenable to hosting the glitzy event as part of his crusade to bolster the city's economy in the wake of the deadly attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11.

A Bloomberg spokesman declined to comment.

Los Angeles officials have estimated the Grammys generated nearly $30 million for the local economy in direct and indirect spending on the show.

Several industry insiders said the rumor that the music industry's most prestigious awards show was moving back to New York next February had been circulating for weeks.

"I heard that's what's going to happen," said one record label executive, who asked to remain anonymous.

Another person involved in the Grammys production last year at the Staples Center in Los Angeles also confirmed the academy was looking at Madison Square Garden for the February 2003 show, which would mark the Grammy's 45th annual edition.

In his management of the Grammys and its locations, Greene has upset several other people and groups, including Los Angeles-based record industry legend Dick Clark and Cuban-Americans in south Florida.

Clark filed a $10 million unfair-business lawsuit against Greene in December, charging him with blacklisting performers from his Grammys telecast on CBS if they appear first on Clark's American Music Awards on ABC.

In August, Greene caused an uproar with Cuban exiles in Florida when he booked musicians from the communist nation to perform at the second annual Latin Grammys ceremony.

Thousands of Cuban exiles protested, claiming these musicians were puppets of Fidel Castro's regime.

Greene abruptly shifted the show from Miami to Los Angeles two weeks before the broadcast amid fears the demonstrations could become violent. The program, scheduled for September 11, was canceled after the attacks on New York and Washington.

One source familiar with the situation said the Latin Grammys this September would be held in the new $94 million Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, which recently served as the venue for the movie industry's Academy Awards.

The Recording Academy declined to comment.

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