Behind the Bicoastal Grammy Battle : With so many galas, the Los Angeles business community may have gotten complacent about the awards show. And New York is trying to take the prize away permanently

The Grammys were born and raised in Los Angeles. Since the first awards ceremony was held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in 1959, the city has had a virtual monopoly over the event, hosting it 27 times versus only six times for New York and once for Nashville.

But L.A.’s familiarity with the Grammys, which it hosts again on Wednesday, may have bred complacency--and what once seemed impossible now looms as a real possibility: the emergence of New York as an alternate or even primary site for the annual gala.

“In all the years we did it in L.A., nobody cared from a civic point of view,” says Pierre Cossette, producer of the Grammy telecasts.

But taking the Grammys for granted left L.A. vulnerable to aggressive campaigning by New York, which captured the event the last two years by promising the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, the organization that administers the awards, lavish parties, attractive financial and promotional incentives and a higher profile.

Stunned by back-to-back defections, Mayor Tom Bradley and the Los Angeles Grammy Host Committee, an ad hoc panel made up of about 50 people mainly representing the L.A. record industry, successfully wooed the awards back to L.A. this year with a slate of fund-raising activities to benefit academy charities. Another factor was NARAS’ desire--later abandoned--to host the awards in a larger venue, for which the Forum in Inglewood offered a proposal at least as attractive as Madison Square Garden’s.

But academy insiders say that Los Angeles, even with this year’s victory, continues to show little of the aggressiveness of New York. And there’s more at stake than a simple loss of pres tige.

The Grammys are seen by a worldwide television audience estimated at 1.4 billion, and New York claims that the 1991 and ’92 Grammys generated more than $30 million apiece from the production and spending on hotels, restaurants and the like by attendees.

With New York anxious to have the Grammys back, Los Angeles may now have to meet or exceed its rival city’s enticement on a yearly basis--or say goodby to the awards show.

“If all things are equal, we would like to see it rotate between the cities,” says Mike Greene, president of the academy. “If all things are not equal, it could stick in one place.”

Valerie Fields, Mayor Bradley’s arts and entertainment coordinator, stresses the city’s official interest in the Grammys. “They know we want them,” she said. “It’s good for the city’s image. Tourism has been down. It was important to have the Grammys come back.”

But Irving Azoff, Giant Records owner and the man tapped by Bradley to head L.A.’s Grammy Host Committee this year, said that enthusiasm isn’t shared by some L.A. businesses. He specifically cited tepid financial support from businesses outside the record industry for fund-raising events that benefit the academy’s MusiCares and Grammy in Schools charities.

Even so, says Greene, the Los Angeles committee promised NARAS it would match the funding the New York committee has pledged in support of academy charities--reportedly $750,000.

“The L.A. host committee’s commitments were absolutely 100% essential to us coming back,” says Greene. “It’s reasonable to believe that if we didn’t have those commitments, we’d be in New York forever.”

“It’s a disappointment,” Azoff said about the financial support. “The L.A. business community has not come forward with financial support that the New York community came through with. Our chances (of getting the Grammys back in 1994) are about zero next year because of that.”

By contrast, New York’s Grammy host committee, led by Jonathan Tisch, chairman of the Loews Hotel chain, can count on support from New York businesses inside and outside the entertainment industry.

“In New York we are fortunate to have major corporate entities based here who understand the exposure and visitor dollars the Grammys generate can be positive for our city,” says Tisch. Indeed, New York is known for going to enormous lengths to accommodate Grammy participants, from parties at Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s official residence, to painting the Grammy logo on the skating rink at Rockefeller Center.

Although it is probably cheaper to produce the Grammys in Los Angeles, Greene says that financial and promotional incentives from New York’s public and private sectors make the trip worthwhile. “The whole city goes out of its way to make people who come in feel the experience is good for the city.”

But in L.A., said Greene, “private industry outside the recording business is not involved to any measurable degree. We have a hundred rejection letters from companies. The abyss that exists between private industry and the entertainment industry is wide and formidable. That same abyss does not exist in New York.”

New York notwithstanding, Los Angeles’ host committee this year assembled an ambitious slate of Grammy-related promotions, including a film festival, children’s concerts led by saxophonist Branford Marsalis, a music-memorabilia auction and a fund-raising dinner honoring Natalie Cole at the Beverly Hilton hotel.

However, Liz Heller, executive director of the Los Angeles host committee, said competition for funds from existing charity programs like Rebuild L.A., coupled with Southern California’s foundering economy, worked against the committee. “It was difficult getting sponsors,” she says.

But finances aren’t the only lure New York has going for it in the national Grammy war. Los Angeles’ lack of a centralized corporate corridor like New York’s Sixth Avenue may hinder fund raising. “In a five-square-block area, you have 80% of New York’s major businesses,” Greene says. “It’s a more cohesive community. They have the ability to coalesce in a way L.A. has never done.”

Los Angeles may also suffer from awards show overkill. Because the city already hosts the Oscars, Golden Globes and a clutch of others, the importance of the Grammys is inevitably diminished. New York, on the other hand, is far less jaded about such affairs, Azoff acknowledges.

“In New York it’s such a big deal, where in L.A. it’s sort of blase,” he says. “It’s easy to create that hoopla around Radio City (Music Hall).”

Adds Cossette: “In New York, there’s a different ambience to the event. It generates much more excitement.”

Ironically, it was an overabundance of excitement at last year’s MTV awards, held at UCLA’s cavernous Pauley Pavilion, that robbed Los Angeles of a potential Grammy selling point. Cossette has long lobbied for a move to a venue larger than Radio City or the Shrine, both of which seat about 6,000. The academy’s decision last year to hold the 1993 event in a larger facility helped tip the scales in favor of L.A., because of the expense and nightmarish logistics of shipping Cossette’s staging and crew to 20,000-capacity Madison Square Garden.

Too, Greene had wearied of having to wait-list or turn away as many as 4,000 potential Grammy show attendees. “I’ve got vice presidents of record companies who can’t get into this thing,” he says. “The pressure is formidable.”

But as soon as the Deadhead-cum-mosh pit ambience of the MTV awards show hit the airwaves, the 18,000-capacity Forum was history. “The next morning I had every record executive and manager in the world on the phone,” said Greene. “It reminded me of when they changed the formula of Coke. They said, ‘The Grammys are ours’ and ‘You can’t do this to us.’ ”

Greene had planned to build a theater-like space within the Forum to maintain the intimacy of the event, but “rather than be a hero” he agreed to move the show to its traditional home at the Shrine.

Greene already was having problems of his own at the Forum. The city of Los Angeles, he said, was no help in getting airplanes approaching LAX rerouted away from the venue; nor could he secure municipal help in offsetting costs of a post-show 6,000-person party, which was to be held in an enormous tent outside the Forum.

The experience is typical, he maintained. “The L.A. Convention and Visitors Bureau continues to be worthless in this process, in comparison to New York’s city agencies,” the academy president said. “If you take a look at the track record of conventions taking place in this city, this town chronically underachieves. The Grammys are quite a feather in the cap of any city. Mayor Dinkins wanted the Grammys big time a year ago to show the Democratic Convention that New York is a place where major events come.” But the L.A. conventions bureau, Greene charged, “is really backward in the whole approach. They should be turning cartwheels, and these people are asleep.”

According to Michael Collins, senior vice president of the L.A. Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Grammys do not generate revenue in Los Angeles comparable to the $30 million claimed by New York. “I would be very surprised if it had that kind of impact here,” he says.

While acknowledging that the Grammys are “glamorous and speak well for the city,” Collins says that because so many Grammy participants are in town to begin with, hotel bookings for the event are comparatively modest. A small convention like the International Assn. of Amusement Parks and Attractions, he says, generates about five times the hotel bookings as the Grammys.

“The usage of hotels is more or less just the boutique hotels, not a citywide room block,” he adds. “That quantifiable, indefinable chunk of business is not a pattern of the Grammys.” The lack of demonstrable business compared to other events limits the resources the convention bureau can provide to the Grammys, Collins says.

In any event, it’s unlikely the Grammys will evacuate Los Angeles permanently. But with New York nipping at its heels, L.A. is on notice that the free ride is definitely over.

For his part, Greene takes a let-the-best-city-win philosophy.

“I have a real short memory when it comes to this thing,” he said. “I just want the best possible experience.”