Ben Winston is one of the most successful producers in television. He has been nominated for multiple Primetime Emmy Awards every year since 2016, and is likely to keep that record intact when this year’s nominations are announced on July 15. Winston is one of the executive producers of the 2025 Grammy Awards, the Paris to Los Angeles “handover” special that followed the 2024 Summer Olympics; An Evening With specials with both Dua Lupa and Elton John & Brandi Carlile, Ellen DeGeneres’ For Your Approval comedy special and The Kardashians.
Winston, 43, has won 13 Primetime Emmys. He received eight nominations in 2019 alone, which constitutes an all-time, one-year record. He was nominated that year for the Grammys, The Late Late Show With James Corden, and no fewer than three Carpool Karaoke programs including When Corden Met McCartney: Live From Liverpool.
Here, Winston talks to Billboard about how running James Corden’s late-night show for eight years made him realize the Grammys had to go forward even in the wake of the L.A. wildfires; who gave him the idea to book Dawes to open the show; and how he “tricked the audience” on this year’s show. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
On Jan. 7, you were just weeks away from the Grammys on Feb. 2, when the L.A. wildfires broke out. Were there discussions about whether to go forward?
There were a lot of discussions. There was a lot rumbling from within the music community – a lot of people were calling saying “you shouldn’t be doing this” or “obviously you have to cancel.” There were questions about “will people want music and want to see people win awards?”
I felt very strongly it should go ahead. Maybe this was from eight years of running a late-night show where you have to respond instantly to anything that happens – tragedy, great things, election results. You need to respond there in that moment. I thought, “We can do some real good here. We can partner with three local charities.” Then we started coming up with really beautiful ideas that helped the show feel tonally right – opening with Dawes, a band who had lost their house and their studios, singing a song [Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.”] that had become anthemic; giving the firefighters the opportunity to come and speak and then to present album of the year, which ended up going to Beyoncé.
So, it really felt like we were building a show that paid tribute to what was happening in L.A., a city that I’ve lived in for 10 years and care deeply about. I felt we got it right.
How did you come to book Dawes to open the show?
I was thinking who could open and sing “I Love L.A.” Brandi and I were on the phone and she said “Do you know the band Dawes?” Within three hours, I was on a Facetime with them. That was all Brandi.
Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars sang the Mamas & the Papas’ “California Dreamin” instead of their own nominated hit “Die With a Smile.” Whose idea was that?
About a week before [the show], Bruno called me and said “Is anybody singing ‘California Dreamin’?’ Because that’s such a beautiful song.” I said “No, would you do it?” He got his guitar and started singing. He said “Maybe me and LG should do this,” so he called her. They both felt it was more important at that point for them do something like that than it was to promote their single.
That was a classy move.
They are, though. Bruno and Lady Gaga are two of the finest artists you can deal with. They are super classy. Also, you deal directly with them.
You’ve been in charge of the Grammys for five years now, since you took over from Ken Ehrlich. How do you see the show at this point?
I think it’s the hardest show on television to make. Because it’s 3-1/2 hours long. It’s every artist’s prom night. Artists do various different shows, but the Grammys is the one where they spend their budget and they think about what they want to do, and it’s the one that the majority of artists want to be on.
Unlike the other award shows that are very reliant on the speeches and the video packages, the Grammys is 20 performances, all with different creatives. You’ve got around 5,000 people backstage [between] designers and choreographers and dancers. And the craziest thing about it is that we only have two months to do it, because we only get the nominations just before Thanksgiving. And then you have the holidays. The big time you make the show is Jan. 5-20. And this year [in that window], everyone was like, “Is the show even happening?” It’s a really tough show.
I really believe we made that show really relevant and exciting, and people still talk about Benson Boone or Doechii’s performance or Beyoncé winning it. And it’s real moments in culture, so I’m really proud of that show. I love making that show, as stressful and painful as it can be.
You team with two other A-list producers, Raj Kapoor and Jesse Collins, in executive producing that show. How does that work, so you’re not stepping on each other?
When I was given the appointment five years ago to take over from Ken, I wanted to bring in the best possible team to make it. We all have our own roles. Everybody has their own thing that they’re great at and we love working together and it’s the most rewarding show that I do of the year. There are no egos. There’s no rivalry. Everyone is so happy and honored to be doing it. I think the show is big enough and tricky enough that it is good that we’ve got all three of us. There’s definitely enough work to go around for all of us and we work really well together.
You say that you can’t start planning until the nominations are announced, but when a major artist like Brian Wilson dies, I would think you’re already thinking who would be best to pay tribute.
There are two elements we think about in advance. One is our legacy artists. The Joni Mitchell performance in 2024 [where she was joined on “Both Sides, Now” by Carlile, SistaStrings, Blake Mills, Lucius, Allison Russell and Jacob Collier], that was a year and a half in discussions. And yes, when people die, you do think about that. But it’s very difficult to plan the Grammys. Most of the artists don’t really want to talk to you until they know if they’ve got a nomination.
The way people watch awards shows has changed so much in the past decade.
I think about the audience’s experience quite a lot. I’m very aware that the audiences that watch television today aren’t used to the 12 commercial breaks that they used to be used to. If you watched the Grammys 10 years ago, you were like, “Of course, that’s how you watch TV.” Today’s audiences are absolutely not used to that. They’re used to either skipping the commercials, watching the streaming, or watching on their phones. So ultimately, I have to think about how we keep the audience there. What we try to do a lot in the Grammys now is just: don’t stop the music.
One of the things I really wanted to do this year, which was probably one of the most ambitious things we’ve ever done in the five years I’ve been running it, was to do all of the best new artist nominees from start to finish without stopping. That was a very difficult thing to try to pull off because you’ve only got a limited amount of space. I also wanted to trick the audience in not realizing we were doing it. So, we sat all the [best new artist nominees] in the audience and Trevor [show host Trevor Noah] walked around and introduced them one by one as they sat down at the tables.
And then he said, “and let’s take a look at the music they created this year…” So you think you’re going to the package that will show the nominees and then Benson stands up, and all these other artists – Shaboozey, RAYE, Doechii – run through their hits. That was 15 minutes of music from start to finish that didn’t stop. When you think about that, it’s an incredibly difficult thing to do – the cameras, the microphone, the staging, the set design. I have wanted to do that for a very long time. So, when that came off [successfully], there were celebrations in the control room. We were over-the-moon.
I think Jack Whitehall does a great job as host of the Brit Awards. He can be snarky, but he’s never mean. He knows exactly how far to go. I like Trevor, but he has no edge, at least when he’s hosting the Grammys. Is that just a function of the difference in British and American tastes?
Brits definitely are snarkier, and we have a slightly more cutting sense of humor — and you can see that from some of the British hosts who come over here, including Ricky Gervais on the Golden Globes. He was very cutting. Jack gets it just right. He toes that line. I think he’s an amazing host of that show. I think he’s terrific.
I think Trevor and I really want the Grammys to be a celebration of music, and we want everybody in that room to feel very comfortable and happy to be there. That’s one of the things I’ve worked hardest at since I took over the Grammys. Now it’s become a room that the whole artist community wants to be part of. We’ve created an environment with the small tables of four, and the drinks and the food. Actually, it’s tough to get a table now at the Grammys. We’re no longer asking people, “Come on, Trust me, the Grammys are going to be lovely and friendly, you’re going to have a good time.”
I think it comes quite a lot from me. I don’t want it to be a room where we are making jokes at people’s expense. I just don’t. It’s the same with The Late Late Show that I ran with James. It’s just not my humor. It’s not Trevor’s humor either. That’s just not who we are. I can only speak from what Trevor and I and [Recording Academy CEO] Harvey Mason jr. want. We want it to be a loving, warm, fun show which can be funny, it just doesn’t need to be at people’s expense. That’s the way I’ll always want to run the Grammys.
Will Trevor host next year’s show?
That’s being discussed right now.
The Grammys have never won the top program award at the Primetime Emmys. The Oscars and the Tonys both have. I wonder why that is.
I don’t know why it never has. I don’t know if it’s like a thing that the TV industry doesn’t want to vote for the music industry. It’s weird, because the Super Bowl half-time show is a 12-minute show [and it won a few years ago], and yet we don’t. I find it a bit strange, but it’s all good. I’ve been very lucky. [I’ve] won 13 of them so I can’t complain.
How did the Paris-to-L.A. handover special come about?
I was given the task at the beginning of 2022. I met with Casey Wasserman [who led L.A.’s bid for the 2028 Summer Olympics]. He said “We have to do a handover in the stadium in Paris, where a Paris representative gives the flag to an L.A. representative and then we take over the stadium for eight or nine minutes and do something that represents L.A. — and we’d love you to produce it.”
I mentioned to him, Wwould it be possible if instead of doing it in Paris, we went live and did it in L.A.?” He said “Yeah, if the idea is big enough. Think big.” So, I had this idea. I’d been working a bit with Tom Cruise on The Late Late Show and I have got a relationship with him. So, I thought wouldn’t it be amazing if he grabs the flag and drives out of the stadium, and then we have him jump out of the plane. You wouldn’t really know where he was until you’d reveal that he’s at the Hollywood Sign and he’s turned it into the Olympics rings, which was a real spectacular thing to do.
And then you get to the beach, and [at that point] we went back to being live — and we had a concert, a bit like best new artist on the Grammys, in that the music doesn’t stop. We hit with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and that goes into Billie Eilish and that goes into Snoop Dogg and Dre. It was such a huge thing to try to pull off. The concert at the beach was hugely ambitious to try to dump three stages on the beach in the middle of L.A. in the summer.
There was a lot to it. We were really throwing the kitchen sink at this handover, but it was probably one of the most rewarding things I’ve never done in my career — because the next day around the world, after one of the best Olympics ever, the only image that was on the cover of every single paper and website for the next two to three days was Tom jumping off the roof and the Hollywood sign. It couldn’t have gone better.
NBC realized early what we were doing, and said to me, “Look, obviously it’s going to play live at 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon, but would you like to make a special out of it?” So, we did. We played that 15 minutes at the top of the special, and then we went into an hour with Venus Williams hosting where all these artists played more songs, and we had some of the beach concert. It was a huge undertaking and it’s something I couldn’t be more proud of.
I read in your bio that you were a broadcasting major at the University of Leeds. No one has ever fulfilled their major better than you.
[Laughs.] That’s kind of you. I love it. It’s so fun to do a job that never feels like a job. I pinch myself because it never feels like work because it’s what I absolutely love to do.
