After statements from several country artists, CMT has announced a new initiative to devote half their music video programming to women.
CMT broke the news via Twitter on the morning of Jan. 21, writing: “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.”
The network revealed Tuesday that 29 hours of primetime videos played across CMT and CMT Music channels will now be split 50/50 between male and female country acts. That’s an increase from the 40/60 (female/male) ratio previously used.
“Time is really up in 2020! All the talk around what can be done to support females in country music needs to transform into action, once and for all,” CMT’s Senior Vice President of Music & Talent, Leslie Fram, said. “At CMT, we are stepping up our own commitments, in addition to our work through the CMT Next Women of Country franchise and will be announcing a new initiative in the coming weeks that will spark this much-needed change in our industry.”
Several prominent country artists spoke out on Twitter in support of the new initiative including Brandi Carlisle, Runaway June, and Jimmie Allen.
Carlisle said in a tweet, “Annnnnnnd @CMT gets to go down in country music history as leading this charge. c’mon country radio cowgirl up!”
Country radio airplay has been a source of ongoing debate in country music since the so-called “Tomatogate” scandal that shook the genre in 2015, after radio consultant Keith Hill compared women in country music to the tomatoes on a salad.
He stated, “Trust me, I play great female records, and we’ve got some right now; they’re just not the lettuce in our salad. The lettuce is Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton, Keith Urban and artists like that. The tomatoes of our salad are the females.”
Even with such an active debate over the issue, the situation for female artists in country music has steadily gotten worse since.
Photo Credit / CMT
