High-Rated Prince Tribute Special Earns a Saturday Replay

Sometimes it snows more than once in April. “Let’s Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince” did well enough in the ratings for CBS Tuesday night that the network has scheduled the special for an instant rerun, to air Saturday, April 25 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

The two-hour tribute, well received by casual fans as well as the Prince faithful, was the top-rated show on television Tuesday night, scoring 1.0 in the 18-49 demographic (besting the 0.8 for the series finale of “Empire”). In total overall viewers, it brought in an impressive 6.49 million, slightly behind the 7.7 million of its network lead-in, “NCIS.”

The first airing Tuesday arrived on the fourth anniversary of Prince’s death — but as timing goes, an even more important factor may have been how ready viewers were to see some full produced live music after a month’s worth of mostly seeing stars turning in acoustic performances from their living rooms. The show was filmed at the L.A. Convention Center in late January just after the Grammy Awards, with Ken Ehrlich as the executive producer of both shows.

Hosted by Maya Rudolph, the special included performances by such back-in-the-day Prince cohorts as Sheila E. (the show’s co-musical director), Morris Day and the Time, the Revolution, Mavis Staples and Susanna Hoffs, along with the Foo Fighters, H.E.R., Miguel, St. Vincent, John Legend, Juanes, Earth Wind and Fire and ballet star Misty Copeland. 

Read Variety‘s review of the show here.