The first hour of Sunday night's Grammy Awards will showcase, we're told, Shawn Mendes, Miley Cyrus, Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris, Little Big Town, Camila Cabello, Ricky Martin and Post Malone, who's teaming up with Red Hot Chili Peppers.
If you're keeping score, that includes only one act from the world of hip-hop — today's biggest selling sound — and he's been paired with a group of 50-somethings.
When CBS, which is broadcasting the Grammys this year, promoted that list during the Super Bowl, there was a collective yawn from music fans.
"I was confused," said Eboni O'Donnell, a senior at Cooper High School in Robbinsdale who is an avid awards-show watcher. "It's a lot of the same thing. Why aren't there different acts?"
Because CBS and the Recording Academy can't risk people tuning out in the opening 60 minutes.
Imagine how CBS pooh-bahs felt when red-hot rapper Travis Scott got bleeped three times during his Super Bowl halftime show. If viewers weren't already bored with the bloodless efforts of Maroon 5, Scott's indecipherable performance of his smash "Sicko Mode" was certainly a channel-changer.
Hip-hop apparently is not safe for prime time.
"In the case of TV, you're dealing with older, white executives who are more worried about the response of advertisers," said Donna Halper, a professor of media studies at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass. "Executives making these choices are trying to walk a tightrope: 'I need a big name — and a big name that isn't going to alienate every advertiser.' You're dealing with caution."