Martina McBride Stands Up for Female Artists

Martina McBride

Martina McBride isn't taking Country un-consultant Keith Hill's talk of lettuce and tomatoes with a grain of salt.

"Trust me, I play great female records and we've got some right now; they're just not the lettuce in our salad," said radio consultant Hill in an interview with Country Aircheck.

"The lettuce is Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton, Keith Urban and artists like that. The tomatoes of our salad are the females."

Keith Hill

The answer to how to get more listeners? "If you want to make ratings in Country radio, take females out," Hill advised.

According to eonline.com,  that didn't sit too well with McBride, who's sold more than 14 million albums in the U.S.

McBride took to Facebook to address Hill's comments:

Wow.....just wow. Just read this from a major country radio publication. How do you feel about this statement? I...
Posted by Martina McBride on Tuesday, May 26, 2015

And she wasn't afraid to pass on what Hill was claiming, including the following excerpt from the Country Aircheck interview in her post:

"If you want to make ratings in Country radio, take females out," Hill was quoted as saying. "The reason is mainstream Country radio generates more quarter hours from female listeners at the rate of 70 to 75%, and women like male artists. I'm basing that not only on music tests from over the years, but more than 300 client radio stations. The expectation is we're principally a male format with a smaller female component. I've got about 40 music databases in front of me and the percentage of females in the one with the most is 19%."

As you might imagine, the dust-up is causing some women on Music Row to give voice to their anger, according to The Tennessean.

For many, this is proof that female artists are being discriminated against in country radio. Only 20 percent — 10 of the Top 50 hits — are sung by female leads (whether solo or groups). Of the Top 50 songs that are 18 months or older, only 12 are sung by women — and nine of the 12 songs are by only three women.

Radio consultant Jaye Albright posted on Facebook, "…He is simply wrong. You could make a case that males sometimes don't relate to specific songs put out by women and that does cause more releases by men to do better on average what the typical female hit does but I have never seen any evidence that women do not like songs by females!"

CMT senior vice president Leslie Fram says, "I can tell you that working and programming radio for over 20 years, this is simply not true. Top 40 is primarily a female format and the majority of artists on their chart are women. This posting is taking us 20 steps backwards. It's an insult to every female artist in the format."