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On January 21, CMT announced that it would devote half of its primetime video hours to female artists, effective immediately.<\/p>\n
For years, the conversation surrounding the dismal statistics that prove women are played significantly less than men have dominated the Nashville media cycle, but a recent resurgence of this issue inspired CMT to make a serious power play toward equality.<\/p>\n
In January, Variety <\/em>reporter Chris Willman remarked<\/a> on Twitter that he heard a Los Angeles country radio station play songs by Gabby Barrett and Kelsea Ballerini back-to-back, nodding to an urban legend among the music industry that country radio is discouraged from playing two female artists in a row to maintain listenership. The comment received a since-deleted reply from a representative at 98 KCQ, a country station in Michigan, stating that they are not allowed to play two female artists back to back. The exchange prompted a firestorm of responses, including replies from Ballerini and Kacey Musgraves. \u201cSmells like white male bullshit and why LONG ago I decided they cannot stop me,\u201d Musgraves defiantly responded<\/a>, while Ballerini used her platform<\/a> to proclaim, \u201cto all the ladies that bust their asses to have half the opportunities that men do, I\u2019m really sorry that in 2020, after YEARS of conversation of equal play, there are still some companies that make their stations play by these rules. It\u2019s unfair and it\u2019s incredibly disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/B7YnjWHFxEg\/<\/p>\n Five days later, CMT announced that half of its 29 primetime video hours now feature female artists, balancing their previous statistics that offered male artists 60 percent of those primetime hours. \u201cWe wanted to look at ourselves first and say, \u2018What more can we be doing?\u2019 This to us was the quickest thing we could do,\u201d CMT Senior Vice President of Music & Talent Leslie Fram tells Audiofemme <\/em>about instituting the new format. \u201cWe felt that another year would go by with another research study that said the same things, and we were like, \u2018We have to take action somehow.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n In December 2019, Dr. Jada E. Watson, an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa, released a comprehensive study<\/a> showing the severity of this underrepresentation on radio. Gathering data between 2002 and 2018, Watson\u2019s findings showed that top female act Carrie Underwood received roughly 3.5 million spins – half the amount of her male counterpart Kenny Chesney with 6 million. Additionally, female acts often hear the same false narratives from executives, such as \u201cwomen don\u2019t want to hear women,\u201d while radio consultant Keith Hill made the controversial claim, \u201cif you want to make ratings in country radio, take females out,\u201d in a 2015 interview with Country Aircheck<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n To help combat this inequality, CMT immediately put the 50\/50 airplay initiative into action with five of the ten videos played on the channel per hour representing female artists. Fans get to see the videos that established the likes of Reba McEntire, Tanya Tucker and Martina McBride as legends, and the cinematic beauty of videos by modern superstars such as Carrie Underwood and Brandi Carlile. The tactic also provides an important platform for Nashville\u2019s rising stars like RaeLynn and Madison Kozak, the first artist signed to Nashville\u2019s new all-female label, Songs & Daughters. \u201cYou’ll be able to see the breadth of a female artists and you’ll see some people that are outside the lines of country that aren’t right down the middle,\u201d Fram describes. \u201cIt’ll be very diverse.\u201d<\/p>\n Effective immediately all music video hours on CMT and CMT Music channels will have complete parity between male and female artists. That means 50\/50. #CMTEqualPlay<\/a><\/p>\n — CMT (@CMT) January 21, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n