It’s like they don’t even care about their ratings at this point.
The CMA Awards has been slowly losing viewers for years, finally rebounding slightly in 2022 after hitting rock bottom in 2020-2021 with fewer than 7 million viewers.
Of course country fans have been screaming for years that the reason they’re losing viewers is that they’ve completely abandoned their fanbase in favor of chasing new viewers by bringing in pop artists, actors, models, athletes, pretty much anybody but…you know, country artists.
Even country singer Justin Moore, who has twelve #1 hits, well over half a billion streams on Spotify, millions of monthly listeners, yet never gets invited to the CMA Awards, spoke out on the problem:
“As more people have gotten a say so in how these productions go on, and they’re further away from country music, it’s like ‘Oh, we need to get so-and-so for ratings. We need to get an actress, we need to get a model, we need to get a football player…’
Country music fans want to see country music artists. They just want to see country artists. That’s why they tune into these shows. And the fact that they don’t put country acts on these shows is why their ratings are failing.”
I mean, it seems obvious, right?
Well apparently not to the Country Music Association.
This year’s ceremonies, which will take place on Wednesday, November 8 from Bridgestone Arena here in Nashville, will be hosted by Luke Bryan…along with Peyton Manning. I guess literally every other country artist was busy that night so they had to bring in a football player.
And I’m not hating on Peyton Manning. I love the guy, he’s hilarious, has a great personality, seems like a great dude…but why is he hosting a country music awards show?
But it just keeps getting worse. The CMAs announced another round of presenters today, including ’80s pop star and former American Idol judge Paula Abdul, comedian Nate Bargatze, actor Kevin Cahoon, Broadway star Cynthia Erivo, “The Golden Bachelor” Gerry Turner and 2023 World Series MVP Corey Seager.
Just…why?
Is there a single person who’s going to tune into the CMA Awards just to see Paula Abdul? If not, why have her on there?
Country music fans (who have largely tuned out the awards) want to see country music artists. If you want country fans to tune back in, maybe you should ditch the pop culture icons and bring on…some country artists.
Are you telling me that if you invited Sturgill Simpson or Tyler Childers you don’t think they would get as many country music fans to watch as…Paula Abdul or the Golden Bachelor?
It’s completely ass-backwards, and they just keep doing it.
But hey, if they’re not worried about their ratings, why should I be?
