New Study Shows Women Want To Hear Women

A new poll, published Tuesday and commissioned by Nashville-based television network CMT, found 84% of country radio listeners believe women should receive the same airtime as men and 7 out of 10 listeners want more female artists in country music.

Study results continue to say 72% of listeners believe they hear more songs by men than women on country radio, and 28% would listen to more country radio if women were better represented, versus 11% who would listen less. Third-party media research company Coleman Insights conducted the survey, polling 1,000 listeners age 25-54 and across North America.

The poll comes as CMT joins equality advocates and a handful of stations in taking steps to combat gender disparity that's taken residency on country music airwaves. A separate study, published by University of Ottawa adjunct professor Jada Watson via the SongData research project, said women occupied roughly 10% of country radio airplay spins in 2019.

Additionally, 72% of listeners said they hear more songs by men than women on country radio, while 44% responded that they would be "very interested" in a radio station that highlights women. More than half said they don't have a gender preference when it comes to the artists they listen to.

"When we approached Coleman Insights about this specific line of research, we were shocked to learn no one had ever commissioned data on the listeners themselves. CMT took it directly to the fans and what we found couldn’t have been more clear: listeners want equal play and women do want to hear women on the radio,” CMT senior vice president of Music & Talent, Leslie Fram explained.

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This one’s for the fans. This one’s for the girls. CMT is committed to bringing together fans, artists and industry leaders to create equal opportunities for women in country. #CMTequalplay

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"This tells us country music fans want to hear good songs period. But it also tells us that we are training listeners not to hear female voices. Without creating an equal playing field, fans don’t know what they are missing," she said. "This is about a balance of gender and diversity. It’s essential for all voices to be heard."

Yahoo News! reports the new study comes roughly one month after CMT put into effect its 50/50 video airplay initiative, meaning that its 29 prime-time video hours are split equally between female and male artists.

A new study from SongData, prepared in partnership with CMT’s Equal Play Campaign, shows that 10% is a statistic that seems to be following women around at radio. That was the percentage of daily spins for women on the Weekly Airplay Reports in 2019 (an accounting of how many spins songs get at radio), the percent of songs on the Billboard’s Year-End Airplay Chart in 2019, and other relevant airplay stats.

SongData found that although this is a 1.2% increase in radio play for women from 2018, the gains happened largely in overnight and evening play — radio's highest exposure times are midday and mornings. So, they played more women but did it when fewer people were listening.
"Any increase at the amount of spins for songs by women in 2019 is thus neutralized by the time at which these songs are spun: the potential impact on an audience is negligible and women’s voices continue to be nearly invisible to radio listeners," writes Jada Watson, Ph.D. M.I.S. and principal investigator at SongData.