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Billboard article: Study Finds 'Alarming' Gender Representation on Country Radio:

Y2kTheNewOldies

Y2kTheNewOldies

https://www.billboard.com/articles/...-alarming-gender-representation-country-radio

A new study confirms what even the casual listener already knows: that country radio is heavily male-dominated -- and provides "alarming" evidence that the gender imbalance is only getting worse.

Released today (April 26), "Gender Representation on Country Radio: A Study of Published Reports from 2000-2018" was published by the University of Ottawa's Jada E. Watson in consultation with WOMAN Nashville, a collective that advocates for equal opportunities and market share for women in the music industry. Using country airplay reports published by Mediabase over the past four months, Watson examined the representation of the top 150 songs on year-end reports from the top of the millennium to last year, as well as 2018’s weekly airplay charts. They also investigated how male, female and male-female artists (i.e. bands or collaborations with men and women) are represented by total annual spins. Their findings indicate that the longstanding practice of programming women at 13 to 15 percent of a station’s playlist is not only self-perpetuating, it seems to be having a tangible effect on female artists’ careers.
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Its a study from University of Ottawa and WOMAN Nashville over an 18 year period over what songs get aired and its relation to Gender Representation.
 
So a woman does a study in consultation with a group called "WOMAN Nashville" and discovers a gender imbalance? Talk about bias.

Did she study the AUDIENCE? Because there's a gender imbalance there too. More women listen to country radio than men. Perhaps there's a connection. Educators should study radio listeners rather than radio. Because that's how programmers base their music decisions. It's all about attracting a specific audience.

The last study on this subject implied that this is a recent thing, and this study covered 18 years, so it's obviously not recent. If the study wanted to be fair, it would have also studied the 60s, 70s, and 80s, when women also made up a minority of the artists played on the radio. Country has been a historically male-dominated genre. There was a small anomaly in the early 90s, but that's about it.

Also interesting that Billboard, which owns and publishes its own chart, has an article that quotes the competing Mediabase chart.
 
But how much of this is audience preference in 2019 vs what's being promoted? Radio programmers like to say "what you don't play can't hurt you" but also point out radio is a prime source of new music discovery. So what people discover is in part, influenced by what radio (or digital playlist influencers, etc.) put on offer and promote. It's definitely a factor. And it seems at times, radio is behind - case in point, Kacey Musgraves.
 
Andy Travis said:
But how much of this is audience preference in 2019 vs what's being promoted?
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What's being promoted is controlled by the record labels. They decide what they're going to promote, and how much time or effort they'll put in a particular release. One way to get more women in the charts would be to release fewer songs by men. Record label rosters have more men than women, so they release more songs by men. When you look at the bottom half of the chart, you'll see a lot of men there too. There are some women getting more airplay than some men. But I don't think airplay decisions are being made strictly on the basis of gender.

Andy Travis said:
So what people discover is in part, influenced by what radio (or digital playlist influencers, etc.) put on offer and promote. It's definitely a factor.
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The study doesn't say women aren't getting played. It says they aren't getting played as often as the men. Those are two different things. If you look at the chart, you'll see lots of women in the chart, and even a few all-female groups (Runaway June, Pistol Annies.) So they're getting played, and they are being heard, and there's an opportunity for music discovery to take place, if the listener is seeking out new music. But when it comes to people's personal streaming chart, we see that country fans prefer men to women. We don't know if that's a gender decision, or if it's a music decision. But it's very pronounced. I'm not sure that popular taste is something you can influence with affirmative action. There are lots of very popular items on the menu that I refuse to eat.

BTW, Kacey got played out of the box with her first single, and her current song is in the Top 40. As I said, it's not that she doesn't get played. Just not as often as other artists in the chart.
 
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The line in this study that infuriates me is accusing radio of having a "gender-based quota system," which is exactly what they are trying to institute. The only "gender based quota system" that exists in country music is where they have Male and Female Artist of the Year. They took one interview with one radio consultant, took it entirely out of context, added their own presentation of the country chart, and declared that country radio is biased against women. Ignoring the fact that many PDs, DJs, and station executives are women. They attack record labels, publicists, and other parts of the music industry, ignoring that many of those people are also women. To make it worse, they bring up the 1996 Telecommunications Act, as though that has anything to do with anything. Country music was dominated by men in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, long before deregulation. They attack iHeartRadio, but include an interview with Leslie Fram, who oversees music decisions for CMT Radio, which partners with iHeart for 10 hours a day of country programming. The article is attempting to regulate personal taste and culture, which is as anti-American as anything I've ever seen. If these people want to do a real study, they should speak with the consumers of country radio. The problem there is they'd come in with pre-determined conclusions, and would force the people to support them, as they did with this completely biased study.
 
TheBigA said:
The line in this study that infuriates me is accusing radio of having a "gender-based quota system," which is exactly what they are trying to institute. The only "gender based quota system" that exists in country music is where they have Male and Female Artist of the Year. They took one interview with one radio consultant, took it entirely out of context, added their own presentation of the country chart, and declared that country radio is biased against women. Ignoring the fact that many PDs, DJs, and station executives are women. They attack record labels, publicists, and other parts of the music industry, ignoring that many of those people are also women. To make it worse, they bring up the 1996 Telecommunications Act, as though that has anything to do with anything. Country music was dominated by men in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, long before deregulation. They attack iHeartRadio, but include an interview with Leslie Fram, who oversees music decisions for CMT Radio, which partners with iHeart for 10 hours a day of country programming. The article is attempting to regulate personal taste and culture, which is as anti-American as anything I've ever seen. If these people want to do a real study, they should speak with the consumers of country radio. The problem there is they'd come in with pre-determined conclusions, and would force the people to support them, as they did with this completely biased study.
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Well in the study the article names Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, Martina McBride and Faith Hill as the top female country artists. But these 4 artists have their songs played on CHR and AC format radio though.

Also if you talk about Taylor Swift specifically she would be more known for being aired on CHR Radio and AC Radio than country.
 
RadioPatrol said:
Well in the study the article names Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, Martina McBride and Faith Hill as the top female country artists. But these 4 artists have their songs played on CHR and AC format radio though.
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They were launched and developed on country radio. From there, their music was promoted on other formats. But they would not have received their airplay in other genres without the success achieved first in country. Yes Carrie was the American Idol, but there were many other Idols who haven't achieved the success she's had. I'd suggest her success came despite Idol, not because of it.

At the same time, there are current artists getting airplay now, such as Kelsea Ballerini, Carly Pearce, and Kacey Musgraves, who haven't experienced cross-over success. Maren Morris did, but it was with a pop song where she is strictly the guest vocalist. And I doubt she would have had the opportunity if it hadn't been the success she had in country first.
 
The Interesting part about this study here is that Kenny Chesney the top Country Artist on the Mens Side only has about 850,000 fans on Youtube. But he is named for having the most air time on radio.

And the article mentions that Taylor Swift is only getting airtime on radio 1.8 Million times on Country Radio. Yet if you are to see Taylor Swift on Youtube she has 33 Million fans on her profile and her songs have 1-2 billion viewers than Kenny Chesney Youtube page. This may be due to where the median audience for their fans are at though.



https://www.youtube.com/user/kennychesney

https://www.youtube.com/user/taylorswift

https://www.youtube.com/user/taylorswift/videos

https://www.youtube.com/user/kennychesney/videos
 
RadioPatrol said:
The Interesting part about this study here is that Kenny Chesney the top Country Artist on the Mens Side only has about 850,000 fans on Youtube. But he is named for having the most air time on radio.
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Most of Kenny's hits came before the popularity of YouTube. Taylor came after.

Truthfully, Kenny isn't getting much radio airplay now either. His heyday was 2000 to 2010.
 
^^^ To me, his last song named "Better Boat" should've gone all the way.

God bless you and Kenny always!!!

Holly
 
The observations of this study are true almost no matter the genre.

WLIT/New York's last hour features 4 female artists (Cyndi Lauper, Kelly Clarkson, Sarah MacLaughlin, and Atlantic Starr) and 10 men (Journey, Seal, Huey Lewis, Charlie Puth, Men at Work, The Beatles, Naked Eyes, Peter Gabriel, Ambrosia, Chicago).
WTMX/Chicago's last hour features 10 men and 2 women, although 3 cuts have women receiving "featuring" credits.
I'm pretty sure neither of those stations is playing more men than women because they feel like being chauvinists. More likely because the audience is familiar with these hits, which happen to be by men.


Country music definitely had a problem with women being represented in the past. I'm talking about when Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton were trying to make it in the 60s. Before that there was essentially no country music recorded by women. I would suggest in the 90s the gender ratios balanced out during the "new traditionalist" era, but much of that music is no longer being played on country radio.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
The observations of this study are true almost no matter the genre.
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It's even worse in the rock and alternative genres. Stevie Nicks talked about it last month when she was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

As for country women of the 90s, there may have been more women in the charts, but they didn't have as many hits as the men. Even Shania Twain, with all of her success, had fewer #1 songs than men who sold fewer records. She released 38 singles but only had 7 #1 songs.
 
Sure, I wasn't really thinking of one singular female country superstar in the 90s. Certainly George Strait and Garth were more popular among core country listeners than Tricia Yearwood or Faith Hill.

For calendar years 1996 and 1997, a female artist was #1 on the Billboard country charts for 35 weeks of 102. Those weeks were accounted for by 10 different artists. So the material was there. But I don't hear a lot of country stations -- even Nash Icon style stations -- spinning dozens of Tricia Yearwood or Faith Hill titles these days.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
I don't hear a lot of country stations -- even Nash Icon style stations -- spinning dozens of Tricia Yearwood or Faith Hill titles these days.
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Because those songs are over 20 years old, and country stations are currents-based. There are very few men who made the transition into the new century.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
The observations of this study are true almost no matter the genre.
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On classical radio, every composer played is guaranteed to be male, except on International Women's Day, when the station will dust off its Clara Schumann and Amy Beach CDs. Likewise, every orchestra you hear will be conducted by a man. But women are well represented as featured instrumental soloists -- depending on the instruments they play. A trumpet concerto is virtually 100 percent certain to feature a man, a harp concerto is virtually 100 percent certain to feature a woman.

This testosterone-laden state of affairs is addressed nearly every week by one of the volunteer hosts on WMNR Monroe, CT, Dominique Johnson, who will always bring in recordings featuring women in all roles for their share of airplay on her Friday morning show. Not long ago, she linked on her Twitter page to an article by another woman frustrated by classical's male domination who recalled that when she was introduced to classical music as a child -- by her father, of course -- she was immediately drawn to the music of Bela Bartok solely on the basis of the composer's name. She recalled being devastated when Dad broke the news to her that Bela was not "a girl like me," nor were Camille Saint-Saens or "Meredith freaking Willson," two others she'd also assumed had no Y chromosome.
 
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If you look at the lyrics of nearly all of the current country hits they have two themes: 1) I just met the perfect girl 2) Let's get drunk.
Unless they want to have the singer play the part of a lesbian, women can't sing that they just met the perfect girl. Country probably isn't ready for gay themes. So that leaves the female singers with one topic: getting drunk. There probably aren't enough drinking songs to keep the female entertainers busy.
 
CAVEMANager said:
There probably aren't enough drinking songs to keep the female entertainers busy.
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Just an FYI, seven of the Top 30 songs this week are by women. The women range in age from 55 (Trisha Yearwood) to 19 (Gabby Barrett). No other format has as many women covering as wide an age range.

The women have lots of topics to sing about. Ingrid Andress sings about the experience of bringing her boyfriend home to meet her family, saying if he breaks her heart, he'll be breaking more hearts than hers. Maren Morris has a Top 5 song now talking about the relationship with her husband, saying "The bones are good." Kelsea Ballerini has a song directed at her high school's homecoming queen.

The men have found other subjects to sing about. Riley Green has a timeless song titled "I Wish Grandpas Never Died." Lady Antebellum had a #1 with "What If I Never Get Over You."

But since you generalize the two subjects of current country songs, my question to you is how is that different from the subjects of country songs in the 60s or 70s?
 
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