Music Execs Weigh In On Lack of Women Artists On Country Radio

Billboard reports that for the first time since 1990, its Country Airplay chart dated December 8, which pulls from mainstream country radio stations, had no women in the top 20, and then there were no women in the top 20 again for this week’s chart. Billboard also reports that only four women made their year-end Country Airplay Artists tally, and this year Maren Morris is the only woman in the top 20 (at No. 14).

According to Hazel Cills at The Muse, it matters because country radio hasn’t historically been interested in promoting the music of women.

Billboard recently interviewed some of those executives and the quotes read like the typical cycle of finger-pointing, with many of them referring to women artists as “females, ” writes Cills.

R J Curtis

R-J Curtis, incoming executive director for Country Radio Broadcaster recently told Billboard,  "Suggesting the ladies -- as a group -- aren’t making great enough music right now is an extremely slippery slope, because music taste is so subjective; most programmers are understandably concerned about the ramifications of verbalizing that. But many PDs I talked to in my previous role [as Nashville editor of radio trade All Access] did feel that way…Though I have no knowledge of it, I have heard anecdotally that labels signed far fewer females in recent years, which, if true, would partially explain our current airplay lapse. We often hear radio is to blame for that too. Programmers have told me the “chicken or the egg" premise is frustrating, because they’re often blamed for being the chicken and the egg.

"As for solutions -- this is just one former PD’s observation from the peanut gallery, and not an official CRB position -- but that sway could perhaps be manifested by radio groups redirecting their music and label partnerships in a dedicated effort to correct any disparities. For example, instead of singular airplay initiatives, radio might consider committing to several projects by several ladies at a time, spanning a period of 16-18 months, not six to eight weeks. This strategy could result in credible and genuine artist development, rather than manufactured, occasional hit singles, while triggering a format correction for female artists."

 In 2016, Billboard also found that in a sample of 236 studied country singles in a period between 2014 and 2015, three female categories (solo, all-female group, and male and female group) only accounted for 35.6 percent of those singles. When they then divided that sample into large labels and small labels (the larger ones being, of course, those that would make the biggest impact), only 26.8 percent of the songs that large labels pushed to country radio included women, and 17.9 percent of those songs were just those by solo female artists. To sum up: big labels were pushing way, way more men to country radio than women.

There is this “chicken or egg” mentality that happens with this conversation over women absent on the country radio charts, and there certainly is blame to be had on both sides, concludes Cills.