CMT Gutted in Latest Round of Layoffs. Leslie Fram Departs.
At this point, it’s hard to see how CMT continues forward as even a semblance of what it once was after the latest round of layoffs from parent company Paramount gut the country music cable network of top-tier talent, including long-time and heavily influential Senior Vice President of Music and Talent, Leslie Fram.
The news came down on September 25th that Stacey Cato (Director of Music and Talent), Quinn Brown (VP of Production), Ray Sells (Senior Director of Production), Jennifer DeVault (Senior Producer), Jordan Walker (Senior Manager of Music and Talent), Abbi Roth (Senior Manager of Music and Talent), Bryana Cielo (Executive Assistant) and Heather Graffagnino (VP of Production Management) were all let go.
The layoffs were part of Paramount Global’s reduction of staff that is expected to affect their United States workforce by some 15% as the company works to merge with Skydance Media. The cuts seem to have affected CMT disproportionately compared to other Paramount holdings.
Paramount’s co-CEO’s George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy and Brian Robbins said in a statement,
“Like the entire media industry, we are working to accelerate streaming profitability while at the same time adjusting to the evolving landscape in our traditional businesses. In order to set Paramount up for continued success, we are taking these actions. Days like today are never easy. It is difficult to say goodbye to valued colleagues, and to those departing, we are incredibly grateful for your countless contributions.”
CMT laid off all of its editorial staff and deleted all editorial content along with MTV and MTV News back in June.
Though the CMT layoffs constitute a major talent drain from the company, there are still a few individuals left, for now. This includes Margaret Comeaux (senior vp of music and events production), Donna Duncan (vp of music and talent), Melissa Goldberg (vp of digital and social), Yasmin Mohammed (producer), David Bennett (creative director) and Erin Mercer (production manager).
Paramount says they are not giving up on the brand and are trying to position it for the future. But what that future looks like remains quite uncertain. Will we ever see another episode of CMT Crossroads? Will there be a 2025 CMT Awards?
Though all the layoffs affecting CMT are significant, the departure of Leslie Fram is far and away the most consquential. Her last day at the company after 13 year was Monday, September 30th. Fram was the primary face of CMT for the last few years, and pioneered many of the company’s most significant initiatives, including the “Next Women of Country” programming and tour.
Where many people in the country music industry spoke about the importance of supporting women, Leslie Fram acted, putting meaningful infrastructure behind the up-and-coming women of country.
“Among my proudest achievements has been our decade+ support of women with CMT’s ‘Next Women of Country,’ a program that has helped promote and elevate over 100 female artists on all platforms, and our efforts to move the format forward in areas of inclusion and diversity,” Leslie Fram said in a letter to her colleagues at CMT, announcing her departure.
Some might claim that it was CMT’s diversity initiatives that put the cable channel on unsure footing—the whole “go woke, get broke” theory. But the truth is that in the age of streaming, cable channels like CMT are on the outside looking into the future of media consumption. The more the budget of CMT was cut and the less original program they’ve offered, the more expendable the channel and brand has become.
The very un-woke show Party Down South and other reality TV programming is how CMT attempted to stay relevant in the 2010’s, but similar to its diversity initiatives, perhaps this programming drove away some of its core audience. Picking up the ABC drama Nashville for its final season helped CMT in its original programming department, but was short-lived. Now CMT is mostly programmed with reruns, while its crown jewel—the CMT Awards—has moved to CBS.
CMT will still be around, at least in the short-term, which begs the question if we should consider it in a similar capacity as we do other legendary institutions of country music. Should we fight for the preservation of it? Or is it too young, and did CMT get what was coming to it by trying to control costs as opposed to being bold, pioneering more original programming, and finding its place in the new media environment?
Either way, the latest round of layoffs and the departure of Leslie Fram feel like the end of an era, and the entering of an era when CMT will just subsist as opposed to try and recapture its past glory, while important shows and initiatives like CMT Crossroads, the CMT Awards, and Next Women of Country face an uncertain future.
October 2, 2024 @ 8:02 am
I’ve never understood the Leslie Fram/CMT synergy. When she was in Atlanta she was on a pop-rock station that transitioned to alt rock. When she left Atlanta for NYC she went to a rock station. Just never saw her as having connections to country music at all.
Considering that the consumption of music videos has changed to on-line outlets like YouTube, I don’t really see why CMT needs to exist anymore. Move original programming like The Last Cowboy to Paramount or Paramount+, scrap the CMT Awards and bring the CMAs back to CBS, and be done with it,
October 2, 2024 @ 10:06 am
It’s a similar story to putting Bobby Bones in the most important DJ position in country music when all he’d ever worked was pop radio.
But I definitely think Leslie Fram grew into the position until she was one of the most important power players in country music. Her connection ran very deep. It just happened to be on a dying medium. And I think as opposed to having a forward-thinking vision for the company to meet the new technology paradigms, it became about earning praise from other dying media outlets for diversity initiatives that may have been popular on Twitter, but unpopular with everyday country listeners and viewers.
October 2, 2024 @ 8:18 am
I channel-surf past CMTM when MTV Classic goes to break, and rarely linger. The ratio of female mediocrity drives me away. They seem to want to play 50 percent X chromosome, but not once they hit 40 years old.
October 2, 2024 @ 8:35 am
If IHeart radio owned a TV station, CMT is exactly what it would be. Terrible programming, endless commercials, lack of any real country music related content.
October 2, 2024 @ 8:36 am
Rest in Piss.
October 2, 2024 @ 9:28 am
Did not ever watch CMT again after they decided 50/50 male/female videos. Probably didn’t matter since they barely played videos but I am probably not the only one. The Jason Aldean thing didn’t help either. Maybe not significant but enough for me to tune out
October 2, 2024 @ 10:12 am
Though I hate to say it, the reason Leslie Fram was able to institute her 50/50 “Equal Play” initiative at CMT was because at that point it really didn’t matter. Few if anyone was watching anyway. I’ve always said eventually mainstream country radio will be 50/50 too because it will be so irrelevant, they might as well try to earn fawning press for themselves.
I do think that women get screwed on mainstream country radio and I applaud Fram for trying to do something about it. But no matter what they did, nobody was going to watch anyway. It’s cable TV. Either you need interesting and popular original programming, or it’s just going to die.
October 2, 2024 @ 11:08 am
Part of it was the lack of the quality of the artists.
People aren’t going to tune in just to observe substandard, or mediocre artists.
Women’s equality “rights” or not.
October 2, 2024 @ 11:26 am
Di,
I agree with you, but there is no convincing Trigger. It’s been a long-running debate.
October 2, 2024 @ 11:35 am
Not trying to convince Trig.
October 2, 2024 @ 12:29 pm
Whenever you’re putting together a streaming playlist, a radio playlist, a festival lineup, or whatever, I think it is important to ask, “Where are the women?” and make sure they are getting equal opportunities to their male counterparts. However, when you mandate that you must have 50% women—especially when they make up only 10% of the active, touring population of artists in country—then you’re resigning yourself to including inferior talent just to meet a symbolic benchmark. This can hurt the cause for women in country instead of helping by putting them in positions where they might fail and not represent the talented women of country well. What’s better is to put the right women in the right positions for them to succeed.
You also have to address the economic realities and the inventory issue that is the underlying reason women are not receiving as much representation.
The irony here is that many of the “play more women” activists always blame the issue on a cabal of straight white men who supposedly control country music from some smoky boardroom on Music Row. In truth, many of the people in positions of power in country music are women. Along with Sarah Trahern who is the CEO of the CMA, Cindy Mabe who is the CEO of Universal Music Nashville, Leslie Fram was arguably the most powerful person at CMT, and thus, one of the most powerful people in country music. So the problem is not women in prominent positions of power.
I applaud Leslie Fram for “Next Women in Country,” which tried to develop talent for country’s future in a way that could address the inventory issue. But the “50/50” Equal Play initiative was more symbolic, because at that point, nobody was watching CMT videos anyway.
October 2, 2024 @ 2:02 pm
“Whenever you’re putting together a streaming playlist, a radio playlist, a festival lineup, or whatever, I think it is important to ask, “Where are the women?” and make sure they are getting equal opportunities to their male counterparts. However, when you mandate that you must have 50% women—especially when they make up only 10% of the active, touring population of artists in country—then you’re resigning yourself to including inferior talent just to meet a symbolic benchmark. This can hurt the cause for women in country instead of helping by putting them in positions where they might fail and not represent the talented women of country well. What’s better is to put the right women in the right positions for them to succeed.”
Very much agree.
“I applaud Leslie Fram for “Next Women in Country,” which tried to develop talent for country’s future in a way that could address the inventory issue. But the “50/50” Equal Play initiative was more symbolic, because at that point, nobody was watching CMT videos anyway.”
Do not agree with this statement.
There is plenty of female talent out there.
Fram was trying to “develop” talent, that fit several piss poor, driven agendas.
Leslie Fram is spinning her departure from CMT, with a story that differs greatly from what Paramount execs are stating.
Thousands upon thousands of people have been displaced/replaced in their employment.
Afraid that some people have bought into their own greatness to the point of not being factual.
Do i feel bad for all of those let go at CMT?
Of course! And, my heart goes out to them.
As tough and emotionally draining as this kind of thing is, it is also an opportunity to take some serious time, reflect on all the moving parts, and come back even stronger.
Wishing all of the people involved in the cuts, well.
October 2, 2024 @ 10:23 am
Paramount have been shooting themselves in the foot for a long time now. They have literally eviscerated their business with ideology at the forefront instead of producing good entertainment for a good value. Their streaming service is fine. I subscribe to it for Navy Seals. A couple of decent shows to watch there right now, but their politics have been dragging them into the muck and mire, and this is evidenced on lots and lots of youtube channels which are covering the internal issues the company has been facing. Horrible ratings, losing money on movie ventures and television shows… all while the audience says “PLEASE STOP! NO MORE! JUST ENTERTAIN ME!!”
It is no wonder CMT is as bad as it is… Paramount does not know how to stop making everything blatantly political in the DEI sense and now it is working to be their downfall. This has been really pissing off viewers a lot more than investors. Even Disney is feeling the heat with this. When I started tracking their stock 6 months ago, it was well over $120/share. Today, $93 and falling (again – the previous low being around $87/share) and Disney still shows no signs of slowing down and listening to their customers who just want entertainment. The audience is speaking so loud that the recent Star Wars franchise story directed and run by Kathleen Kennedy not only saw widespread hatred for the show and it’s agenda-driven message, but also saw said show LOSE money on production. Just like with the movies they keep vomiting out all over us.
But I digress.
This culture creeps into everything until nothing is enjoyable. They need to focus squarely on entertaining, it is their business for crying out loud, and stop trying to push one argument or another, one ideology over another or one political stance over another.
Star Trek has been a massive flop. No one wants to see the next iteration of it. Long-time fans of the sci-fi series are screaming for Paramount to put a fork in it, it’s done. Don’t bring us anymore, you are completely politicizing what should JUST BE ENTERTAINMENT.
October 2, 2024 @ 10:47 am
Sounds like undeserving people finally received their justified pink slips.
October 2, 2024 @ 11:10 am
good, Leslie can go back to being a full time morning DJ at 99x.
October 2, 2024 @ 11:14 am
I can’t believe they still had anyone working there in a creative capacity. Scrolling through their upcoming tv schedule it’s all marathons of repeats of random sitcoms, with a couple hours of music videos in the mornings. Oh, and it looks like they’re shoehorning in a half hour Kristofferson tribute between repeats of Golden Girls and Reba.
Is there even a brand strategy to speak of?
October 2, 2024 @ 3:13 pm
Pop music is basically 100% female these days, with the few males allowed being British types whose fans skew just as female as Taylor Swift i.e. Ed Sheeran and Harry Styles, and even Sheeran and Styles have been around for 15 years so it is highly unlikely that they’d get major promotion or even a record deal if they were entering the industry today. And if you are a black or Hispanic male? Unless The Weeknd counts – and he’s Canadian – or R&B crossovers like Bruno Mars do, forget it, plus both are also well into their 30s like the Brits. Yet the next person who says “We need to do more for males, especially nonwhite males, in pop music” and institutes some 50/50 ratio to promote them will be the first. Instead, the utter lack of male performers or acts aimed at (straight) male fans in pop music is deemed to be “progress.” Rap/hip-hop music is similarly female dominated now, with all the big male acts pushing 40 like the aforementioned The Weeknd, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Future etc. and again everyone treats this as how it should be. So whenever you see someone coming from outside country – and yes this includes the pop interloper hired by Viacom in Fram – claiming “we need more women in country music” they are really saying “we want country music to become as female dominated as pop and rap are.”
As for ” Picking up the ABC drama Nashville for its final season helped CMT in its original programming department, but was short-lived” … considering how that show was “Nashville as viewed by Hollywood and the mainstream media and entertainment industry” it probably helped kill off CMT even faster.
October 3, 2024 @ 8:40 am
What is this snowflake whining mentality? None of this is true. Some of the biggest names in pop and hip-hop are male.
October 2, 2024 @ 4:05 pm
But where am I going to watch endless reruns of Last Man Standing?
October 3, 2024 @ 4:11 am
CMT, MTV, VH-1, et al stopped being about music many years ago. Just like most of the rest of the lineup of cable networks did, and it is time they just faded away into memory. They all became infested with cheap “reality” programming, leaving their original purpose far behind. CMT hasn’t shown a country music video or program in years. Neither has MTV or VH-1. Food Network is nothing but trash food competition shows. TLC is all reality crap. There is a reason no one watches cable network programming any more. Learn something on The Learning Channel? You learn how to yell and scream at other people, that’s it. And on & on with the other networks.
October 3, 2024 @ 5:52 am
Cable TV seems to be following radio into a slow death. Most channels now only have a handful of series with the rest of the broadcast time filled with reruns. I like cars and used to watch Velocity quite a bit. Motortrend took over and eliminated half the shows, and slowly over the last few years has dropped down to about 3-4 shows. They go months with no new programming. Just reruns and live showings of the Mecum action.
Like music, software, and just about everything else, TV is becoming a subscription based streaming operation. You have to dull out multiple monthly subscriptions. Even sports like football require multiple subscriptions to Amazon, Paramount, YouTube, and the list keeps growing. With the list of companies taking their monthly share of peoples paychecks growing, channels like CMT will struggle to survive. So much for saving by cutting the chord.
October 3, 2024 @ 3:01 pm
“Go woke,go broke” actually means,”Get dumb,be a bum” as companies which embrace DEI leave the good ol’ boy firms in the dust.
It seems CMT is a shadow of its halcyon days,but perhaps it can rebound if purchased by
a company dedicated to airing the best artists of all ages,eras,men,women,whites,POC,LGBTQAI,etc.,as the vast majority of Country fans care about talent,not incidentals.
October 4, 2024 @ 11:18 am
About CMT Awards moving to CBS: Does CBS has the capacity to decern what true Country Music is or does CMT Awards face an uncertain future at CBS?
ABC awarded George Strait his first Grammy and the CMT Awards awarded him the Charley Pride Award by the Charley Pride family and on behalf of George Strait and his wife and family, are very appreciative of the honors.
October 6, 2024 @ 8:22 am
I always thought TNN should’ve kept its format and CMT went away, or CMT just become TNN. TNN knew what rural audiences wanted from a programming perspective (outdoor shows, racing, reruns of classics like Dallas and the Dukes of Hazzard) along with plenty of music videos, the Opry, live Nashville shows. Imagine that now.
You could have TNN Outdoors still on Saturday morning and Sunday evening. TNN could air one of the NASCAR series. Rerun staples (Reba, Dukes, Dallas, Nashville, Yellowstone, Andy Griffith, etc), show the Opry on Saturday nights. Texas music scene. Cooking shows. Travel shows. Make it southern lifestyle programming. Sheesh it ain’t hard.
October 6, 2024 @ 4:26 pm
Well, anytime I scrolled by CMT it was reruns of things I didn’t watch when they were new.
Never caught any music content on there in years so I stopped paying attention to it.
So, not surprising at all.
October 10, 2024 @ 2:39 am
No one cares about Leslie Fram or her other friends who whine about insufficient women in country music. There is no conspiracy. It’s about money. If women made money, Music Row would put out more music with women artists. Whatever sells gets priority. I’m sure we will see an era where there are more women than men. It goes in cycles. Fram and her friends use the gender talking point to keep their names in the headlines. No one cares.