Two 2023 Grammy Telecast Executive Producers Are Also Grammy Nominees: It’s a First!

Raj Kapoor and Ben Winston, two of the executive producers of the 2023 Grammy telecast, are Grammy nominees for best music film as the video producers of Adele’s Adele One Night Only.

This marks the first time that someone who is executive producing the Grammy telecast has also been nominated in a competitive category — though Pierre Cossette, who was responsible for turning the Grammys into a live telecast in 1971, came very close at the 1992 show, where The Will Rogers Follies won for best musical show album (now called best musical theater album).

Cossette was a producer of that musical, which starred Keith Carradine as the genial humorist, best known today for his saying “I never met a man I didn’t like.” The crowd-pleasing show won six Tonys, including best musical, which Cossette shared with the other producers.  But he was not a Grammy nominee for the cast album. The Grammy went to Cy Coleman, the composer of the show; Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the lyricists; and Mike Berniker, who co-produced the cast album with Coleman.

The fact that Cossette wasn’t nominated didn’t stop the hammy producer from joining his colleagues on the Grammy stage and giving an acceptance speech. But the Recording Academy, to its credit, didn’t bend the rules to give him an award.

Cossette and Ken Ehrlich, his successor as executive producer of the Grammy telecast, received trustees awards from the Academy in years they were executive producing the show. (Trustees awards are the equivalent of lifetime achievement awards for non-performers.) Cossette received it in 1995, during his reign as executive producer; Ehrlich in 2020, for his final show as executive producer.

Kapoor and Winston won Primetime Emmys in September as executive producers of Adele One Night Only, which won five Emmys, including outstanding variety special (pre-recorded). They shared that award with Adele, Jonathan Dickins, Tara Montgomery, Terry Wood and Rob Paine.

Adele and video director Paul Dugdale are also nominated for Grammys for their work on Adele One Night Only. The other nominees for best music film are Justin Bieber’s Our World, Billie Eilish’s Billie Eilish Live at the O2, Rosalía’s Motomami (Rosalía TikTok Live Performance), Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story (which is credited to Various Artists), and Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s BARN.