Adele’s Five-Step Plan To Save America’s Economy

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If Adele is set to appear at an awards show, you can bet that a lot of people will be tuning in. In the last two years she has managed to up the viewership of the Golden Globes, the Oscars and the GRAMMYs. But what if she started using her popularity for a greater good?

Let’s first take a look at what she’s done for broadcast television. This year’s Academy Awards were the most watched entertainment telecast in three years, according to the Nielsen ratings, earning over 40 million viewers. The singer, who took home the prize for Best Original Song, helped make this year’s Oscar telecast the second most watched since 2005, when host Chris Rock and a special tribute to Johnny Carson attracted 41.5 million viewers. Adele’s performance of her Bond theme “Skyfall” was also the second most tweeted event during the show, with 82,300 tweets-per-minute (TPM), according to Mashable. Her tear-filled acceptance speech was the fourth most tweeted-about moment with 64,000 TPM.

Last month, the new mom helped the Golden Globes garner nearly 20 million viewers and their best ratings since 2007, according to Nielsen. It was Adele’s first public appearance since giving birth in October and though she didn’t perform “Skyfall,” she did walk the red carpet, chatting about Burberry, Bond and her new baby boy.

Later she took home the prize for Best Original Song, a first for any Bond theme, beating out Taylor Swift’s “Safe And Sound” from The Hunger Games - and more importantly, proving once again that if you’re nominated in the same category as Adele, you’re going to lose.

But the Adele-factor really started last year when she helped the GRAMMYs earn their biggest numbers since the 1984 telecast when Michael Jackson took home eight awards. The singer’s triumphant return to the stage after throat surgery, plus a last-minute tribute to Whitney Houston, helped the show garner nearly 40 million viewers. The Brit also conquered the night, taking home six awards, and helped the GRAMMYs pull a slightly larger audience than the 2012 Oscars, not too shabby.

This year, Adele only took home one award (Best Pop Solo Performance, the only one she was nominated for) but still helped the GRAMMYs earn a viewership of over 28 million, making it the show’s second highest watched telecast in 10 years.

Adele doesn’t only have the power to up the viewership of nearly every awards show, she singlehandedly helped restore the music business, not just in America, but worldwide, with her 2011 album, 21. She sold 8.3 million digital copies last year alone, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), increasing the industry’s international growth for the first time in 13 years. Adele also had the biggest selling album of 2012 in the United States, making her the first person to have the No. 1 album two years in a row since Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991.

But let’s start thinking a little bigger, shall we? Why couldn’t she help a few of America’s floundering businesses and institutions?