In accordance with the entire schedule for the Grammys being bumped up to avoid a conflict with the Oscars in 2020, a date has been set for the announcement of the nominees later this year: Nov. 20. That’s 17 days ahead of the Dec. 7 date when the previous slate of Grammy nominations was released last year.
The Grammy telecast was previously announced as taking place on January 26, 2020. That adjustment was made after the Academy Awards moved up their schedule and planted their flag for Sunday, February 9 — the same date that the Grammys would have otherwise fallen on. “Music’s biggest night” had to blink when the movies’ biggest night played a game of chicken.
All these shifts have most events on the upcoming Grammy calendar falling 14-17 days earlier than they did last winter. There’s one area where there’s a more significant shift, though. The actual eligibility period for music releases is being shortened not by two weeks but a full month, ending on August 31 of this year instead of the traditional last day of September. That means that, thanks to the Oscars, Recording Academy members will be considering just 11 months’ worth of releases instead of 12.
Related
Anyone wishing to submit releases has to get started thinking about it sooner than the end of August. The online entry access periods have been set for June 24-July 8 and July 17-August 2. The first round of voting on potential nominees will take place Sept. 25-Oct. 10.
After the nominations are announced Nov. 20, final voting for the awards will take place Dec. 9 through Jan. 3. Not every Recording Academy Member is excited about the almost exact overlap between the voting period and the height of the holiday season. It could have been worse, though. That Jan. 3 voting cutoff is only one week earlier than the Jan. 10 cutoff this last time, suggesting an accommodation for the holidays — because if they’d bumped that up a full two weeks or more like everything else, the end of voting would have occurred between Christmas and New Year’s. Come January, Deloitte will just have to count a lot faster.