CRS360 Webinar Explores Country Radio's Gender Balance

On Thursday, Country Radio Broadcasters’ Executive Director RJ Curtis hosted the inaugural CRS360 webinar, the first in a series that aims to deepen discussions around hot button topics pertaining to country radio, the first of those being the lack of female artists heard on country radio.

The CRS360 webinar was the first of a two-part look into the topic. SummitMedia VP/Programming and President/GM of the company’s Wichita cluster Beverlee Brannigan served as moderator. The session included Stone Door Media Lab’s Jeff Green, Cumulus Dir. NASH Programming and WKDF/Nashville PD John Shomby, and Vanderbilt University postdoctoral scholar Rachel Skaggs, Ph.D., to look at chart data, as well as the sociological impacts.

Green offered several data sets, tracking country radio chart data over the past 45 years (1974-2018). He summarized the findings from looking at a nearly half-century worth of country radio data with three key points, including:

• Male country artists have historically dominated country radio airplay, having 70% of all singles released to country radio, 74% of all Top 15 songs, and 78% of all No. 1 songs over the past 45 years.
• He notes the downtrend in the number of female artists on country radio that has dogged country radio from 2011-today is not a new phenomenon and that it happened previously in the ‘80s and ‘90s.
• A slower chart further compresses opportunities for female artists, who must compete against a larger roster of male artists, whether at country radio or in the streaming world.

In 2018, female solo artists earned just 5.4 percent of the No. 1 songs at country radio, a drastic fall considering the peaks in 1978 and 1998, when female solo artists earned 30.3 percent and 30 percent of the No. 1 songs on country radio, respectively. However, 1982 served as the lowest point, when female artists earned 3.7 percent of the No. 1 songs, followed by 2014, when they earned 4.6 percent of the No. 1 songs.

The data found that on average over the past 45 years (1974-2018), female artists have achieved 27 percent of the Top 15 singles on country radio. Notably, since 2007, when Arbitron (now Nielsen Audio)’s Portable People Meter (PPM) was introduced, the number of female artists notching songs in the Top 15 on country radio fell to an average 21 percent (2007-2018). Over the past five years, that number continued to drop, to a 16 percent average. That data includes songs from solo female artists, duos or groups with a female vocalist, and duets that included a female artist.

According to data tracking the percentage of Top 15 country radio singles by females from 1974-2018, the late ‘90s offered a peak in the number of female artists earning Top 15 singles, with female artists bringing in 38.9 percent of the format’s Top 15 singles in 1998. 1999 saw similar numbers, with 37.2%. Prior to 1998, the peak year for females earning Top 15 singles (according to the data set) was 1979, when female artists earned 34.9 percent of the format’s Top 15 singles.

2018 marked a new low in the number of female artists notching Top 15 singles, with 12.2 percent.

Shomby and Green also attempted to address the effects PPM have had on radio stations and artists, versus handwritten logs that are still often used.

“With PPM it’s about exposure rather than the listener,” Shomby said. “If you are in a grocery store and hear music over the radio, it picks that up, whereas a diary is what you recall listening to. I think that affects radio’s ratings.”

“When stations ratings depressed from 2007-2009, radio stations built a lot of pressure about the music and started focusing on hits,” Green said. “We can’t blame 100 percent of the blame on the people meter but as you saw the change in 2000s, that has had an effect. Female artists who were outnumbered to begin with were affected by PPM.”

Adding to this is the slowing of the radio charts that began in 1995, as it takes longer for a song to reach the top of the chart. The study found that in 1998-1999, the number of total No. 1 songs (by males, females or groups/duos) on the country radio chart fell by half in the country genre, from 40 No. 1 songs in 1998 to 18 No. 1 songs in 1999. That downward trend seems to have largely recovered, as since 2013, there have been at least 40 No. 1 songs each year, with the exception of 2018, which saw 37 No. 1 songs.

“It means fewer slots for new adds each week,” Green said. “And with so many consistently active male artists, it makes it harder for female talent.”

The conversation surrounding the lack of female voices on country radio will continue with Part 2 on June 11 at 1 p.m. CT.