Nation watches live as Grammys rule daytime viewing

Lorde has been getting legions of followers on social networking sites. Photo / Getty Images

People from all around the country seemed to be interested in how a certain Kiwi teenager would fare at the Grammy Awards, with many tuning in to the live show.

Figures from the Nielsen Television Audience Measurement service indicate the Grammys was the most-watched show on television between 9am and 5pm on Monday.

Up to 226,400 people switched to TV2 to watch one of the world's biggest music events, which aired at 2pm and finished at 5pm. The next most-watched programme during that time was One News, at midday, which reeled in 113,500 viewers.

Shows on TV One - Emmerdale and The Chase - almost made the "most-watched" list during the day, picking up 77,960 viewers between 12.30 and 12.55pm and 60,580 from 9.30am to 10.30am respectively.

Monday's live coverage of the awards was not scheduled to screen a few weeks ago.

But after a big push from New Zealanders wanting to watch Kiwi singer Lorde perform - as well as wanting to see whether she would win an award - TVNZ caved and agreed to air the awards twice.

The second screening of the Grammy Awards brought in a significantly lower number of viewers than earlier in the day, with a total of 182,040 switching to TV One between 9.15pm and 12.35am.

Despite the Grammys being the most-watched programme in the day-time, the awards ceremony failed to make Nielsen's top five most-watched programmes over the whole day.

One News

was the leader on that board, picking up 581,000 viewers and followed by

Shortland Street

(357,550) and

Australia's Got Talent

(441,000).

Meanwhile, Lorde has been getting legions of followers on social networking sites since stamping her mark at the Grammys on Monday.

Last night, the number of followers on her Twitter page was edging towards a million, with almost 950,000 fans signing up to her official site.

Shortly before 6pm she told followers she was experiencing the same phenomenon on Facebook.

She tweeted: "Wow, so many people I don't really know at all want to be my friend on Facebook since last night. #yes #great."

• Read more stories on Lorde here.