special tribute to dick clark who passed earlier this year. >> dick loved the power of music and its ability to create pure joy. >> reporter: clark created the awards to honor america's best performers. and the night's biggest award, artist of the year went to -- >> justin bieber. >> reporter: now, the nominees are selected through radio play and music sales, but it's the fans who chose the winners, and they did it through online voting, rob and paula. >> brandi, i'm sure you're a huge justin bieber fan. i wanted to know, any early thoughts on what the biggest performance of the night was last night, who stole the show? >> you know what, rob, well, i am a fan of the biebs. i don't know if his performance was the biggest. i think it was when psy and mc hammer took the stage together. we noticed psy started doing the gangnam style with hammer pants