CRS360 To Explore Country Music 'Gender Imbalance'

Country Radio Broadcasters is launching “CRS360,” a continuing webinar series designed to address emerging trends and current hot topics in country music. The objective of this monthly program is to create an ongoing educational dialogue among industry stakeholders, beyond the organization’s yearly CRS event, which takes place each February in Nashville.

“CRS attendees from all segments of our industry have always been focused on addressing key issues and challenges through civil, productive discussions, with the objective of providing actionable takeaways,” said CRB Executive Director RJ Curtis. “Their eagerness to solve problems is not limited to several days in February; we all know the news and information cycle keeps moving faster than ever, and that certainly applies to the music business.”

CRS360 will debut at 2 p.m. CT on Thursday, May 23, with a data-driven examination of country music’s gender imbalance. The first of a two-part series will feature Stone Door Media Lab’s Jeff Green, who will provide both short and long-term historical analyses of male-female artist chart outcomes based on country radio, Shazam and Pandora.

Vanderbilt University Postdoctoral Scholar Rachel Skaggs, Ph.D., will discuss current sociological/cultural trends and their potential impact on the emotional connection between delivery outlets for Country music, and fans of the genre.

Cumulus Dir. Nash Programming and WKDF/Nashville PD John Shomby will offer perspective on Green and Skaggs’ data, plus, share information on the realities programmers face when building playlists.

The discussion will be moderated by SummitMedia VP/Programming and President/GM of the company’s Wichita cluster, Beverlee Brannigan.

Interested parties can register to participate in the webinar here. The webinar is free, but slots are limited.

Additional CRS360 topics to be covered during 2019 include a look at country radio’s mid-year ratings; revisiting continuous measurement in diary markets (first discussed at CRS2019); and, a look at podcasting for radio personalities.