Moving the CMT Awards From Nashville to Austin is Stupid

Why? WHY?
It seems like the Nashville country music machine is obsessed with integrating the Austin and Texas market into their slimy, scuzzy sphere of influence. They’ve already secured such an iron grip on the Nashville music industry with their greedy and malevolent suction cup-lined mandibles, now they must move on to fresh meat and corporatize ATX with their safe, mainstream, Disney-style corporate HR indoctrinations and shitty versions of “country” music.
We already had Ryman Hospitality Properties—which owns the Grand Ole Opry, the Opry House itself, The Ryman Auditorium, and numerous other important music properties in Nashville—buy the downtown Austin complex that houses the 2,750-seat Moody Theater where Austin City Limits is taped, and where ACL Live events happen weekly. Now they’ve decided in all of their infinite wisdom that there is any viable reason that the CMT Awards would work better in Austin than Nashville.
First let’s establish that the CMT Awards mean absolutely nothing. They’re about as meaningful as a diploma from Corinthian College. The categories are dumb, the awards are voted on by fans which means Stan armies pick the winners, and the awards are about as worthless as paperweights in a digital document world. CMT as a cable station these days is little more than a clearinghouse for TV Land reruns on a dying medium. When these pop country stars croak, nobody will cite how many CMT Awards they own. It’s the Mitchell “Bitches” Tenpenny of country music award shows. Third tier and irrelevant.
But with Austin’s inferiority complex with Nashville, and Austin’s completely failed attempts to resuscitate its music scene to its once mighty prestige thanks to all the tech hipsters snuffing out affordability and everything else that once made Austin cool, the money grubbers behind Austin’s new Moody Center arena are more than happy to facilitate moving the CMT Awards production to the city with lucrative financial incentives for CMT to present the facade that people still give a shit about music in Austin. 2/3rds of Austin’s legendary venues have closed. But hey, we have Kelsea Ballerini handing awards out to Walker Hayes for his Applebee’s song. Yay Austin music!
The truth is, as stupid as the CMT Awards have always been, they’ve at least made for a decent centerpiece of CMA Fest in Nashville that’s held every June. With many of the stars already in town during CMA Fest, holding the CMT Awards at the Bridgestone Arena right in the thick of the festivities made intuitive sense. Due to COVID and other stuff, the airing of the CMTs have shifted over the last couple of years, but that’s not the real motivation behind this move.
Let’s recall that CBS—which is part of Paramount and owns CMT—parted ways with the ACM Awards in 2021, which had been the ACM’s long-time broadcast partner. Amid declining ratings and the ACMs demanding $2 million more in broadcasting fees, the two entities cut ties, and in 2022 the ACMs were streamed on Amazon. CBS and Paramount’s big idea was they could replace the ACMs that have been around for going on 60 years with the CMTs. Along with the announcement that the awards are moving to Austin, CMT also announced the awards show will air on April 2nd on CBS again after moving to the network in 2022.
But again, this is the CMT Awards. They’re meaningless. There is no legitimizing of them by moving them to Austin or anything else. The can’t even air them solely on CMT anymore because most millennials and Gen Z’ers in the key demographic don’t even have cable, and wouldn’t watch a two-bit awards show even if they did.
So why even care about any of this? Because there is still something to be said about the integrity, autonomy, and authenticity of Austin as something apart, more artistic-minded, and more genuine than Nashville. Who do you think is going to attend the CMT Awards in Austin anyway? It’s going to be a bunch of people from Nashville who fly in. Local Austinites will regard it no different than a vacuum cleaner convention that happens to be in town some random week. This is one of the reasons the ACM Awards moved the awards from Las Vegas to Nashville in 2020, and relocated their headquarters to Nashville from Los Angeles in 2022.
So what’s in it for Austin and the new Moody Center Arena? In another bad move and ill-fitting partnership, iHeartMedia set up their iHeartRadio Country Festival in Austin in 2014 at the Frank Erwin Center, which the new Moody Center has now replaced. Similar to the CMT Awards, though the iHeart Fest were held in the “Live Music Capital,” the music of Austin had absolutely nothing to do with it. It was a bunch of 2nd and 3rd-tier Nashville stars who performed. It appears that after the pandemic, the iHeartRadio Country Festival has gone defunct. It hasn’t been held since 2019, with no plans at the moment for its return.
Incentivizing the CMT Awards to come to Austin in replacement of the iHeartRadio Country Festival that was held in the spring as well perhaps was the plan, with the idea that luring Nashville industry types to the city will ultimately pay off in added tax revenue generated by the event. But instead of CMT wasting its effort in where the local/regional population will simply ignore the event or be outright repulsed by it, keeping the CMT Awards in Nashville seems much smarter. Or even better, just shitcan the awards altogether. Sure, some awards show ratings have stabilized somewhat after falling off a cliff during the pandemic, but it’s still a decaying institution, just like cable and CMT. At least the CMAs and ACMs have a history. The CMTs are solely a creature of television.
Ultimately, the effect of moving the CMT Awards from Nashville to Austin will be generally unimportant, and any effects incidental at best, while those watching at home won’t even recognize the change of scenery, aside for some stereotypical shots of longhorn cattle coming in and out of commercial breaks. But it is troubling to see how these Nashville entities seem to be encroaching more and more on the one city that is attempting to offer a healthier alternative to Nashville’s restrictive monopoly on country music.
Will hosting the CMT Awards in Austin mean the implosion of everything cool about the “Live Music Capital?” Of course not. But organizations, business interests, and individuals involved in Austin music need to stay vigilant about the mission creep of Tennessee-based entities slowly threading their mandibles around the thorax of Austin. The city already has enough challenges plaguing its music scene, including the continued flight of much of its talent to Nashville. The last thing Austin needs to become is a satellite property to Music City, aka Nashville West.
If we can’t Keep Austin Weird, at least keep Austin Austin.
November 3, 2022 @ 8:33 am
Due to not having my glasses on I thought the title was about the CMAS moving from Nashville to Australia. That might be a better idea given most of the local Aussie country/country rock bands would make the armatures look stupid and have cool songs like an improvisation of a song about their answer to Jesse James Ned Kelley. Then again I’m fairly certain Luke Bryan would wonder if they’d have time to stop at Arnold Schwartneggers house.
November 3, 2022 @ 10:17 am
The CMT Awards are as phony as Austin is becoming. I was there in 2021. The city was full of tents.
The two deserve each other.
November 4, 2022 @ 7:07 am
The CMTs are corny..
Whoever is in the audience 95% of the time will be winning an award.
They notify the artists ahead of time… So if you didn’t get notified, you can still attend the show but know your @$$ ain’t winning nuttin.
All the winnners are sitting front row too. Its too obvious
November 3, 2022 @ 10:41 am
Agree with this 100% Thanks for bringing that into focus!
November 3, 2022 @ 10:50 am
Austin isn’t more authentic than Nashville; it’s just a different kind of phony.
I think this is hilarious, and I’m happy about it.
November 3, 2022 @ 10:52 am
Nashville and Texas music do not mix. Recently I went to see William Clark Green at a “honky tonk” in a suburban Midwest city. The place advertises itself as the Nashville annex 6 hours north and largely books up and coming artists signed to labels in Nashville. Until WCG I hadn’t seen a Texas artist play there. I decided to make the 2 hour drive to support him and check the place out. About 300 tickets were sold for a room that holds 1200. And maybe a third of those actually paid attention to the show with the rest playing pool, talking and socializing or just wanting to be seen in their white stitched jeans and Jason Aldean t shirts. WCG and his band still rocked and played a helluva show for the 100 or so folks actually paying attention. Long story short – Trigger is damn right – keep Nashville out of Texas. Two totally different music consumers and musical styles.
November 3, 2022 @ 11:10 am
Can’t wait for the faux promotional shot of skinny jean wearin Nashville stars line dancing at the Broken Spoke.
November 3, 2022 @ 12:20 pm
Yes, they’ll exploit all of Austin’s insitiutions, but the last thing they’ll do is let Weldon Henson, Alvin Crow, Dale Watson, or and of the other Broken Spoke regulars anywhere near the CMT Awards stage, nor would any of those regulars accept even if they received an invitation.
November 4, 2022 @ 4:19 am
You’re right about that.
November 3, 2022 @ 11:44 am
April 1st would have been a better selection…
November 3, 2022 @ 12:39 pm
Hmmmmmm. Didn’t the Bobby Bones Show originally originate from Austin? Curiouser and curiouser.
November 3, 2022 @ 12:48 pm
Yes, Bobby Bones started in Austin, but he was a pop DJ. Taking him national though was also part of this trend, and dovetailed with the iHeartMedia Country Festival.
It’s clear what’s happening here is that the investors in Austin’s new arena think they’ve lured a big fish to Austin with the CMT Awards, and they probably offered CMT a deep discount to rent the facility, discounted hotel room blocs, and will roll out the red carpet, hoping to make it an annual thing. But this is the CMT Awards. It’s completely inappropriate for Austin, it’s a dying awards show despite being able to boast “higher ratings” just because they moved to CBS last year, and makes so sense for CMT since they’ll have to ship all of their folks in from out-of-town.
November 3, 2022 @ 4:29 pm
Puke Puke Puke.
Booby Bones – Puke
Austin – Puke
Nashvegas – Puke
CMT – Puke
November 3, 2022 @ 1:29 pm
Move all awards shows to Marty Stuart’s Congress of Country Music. That is the only way to somewhat legitimize what is an entirely artistic illegitimate exercise. Also, have Marty host and require in the limited seat capacity to have only real country music artists in attendance. Well, you might have to invite a few sidewalk passersby in to fill the rest of the seats with that requirement.
November 3, 2022 @ 4:43 pm
Fuck Nashville
Fuck Austin
Fuck modern country music
November 3, 2022 @ 7:33 pm
Modern country music some years back was perfectly described by a neurosurgeon one morning who looking out the window at downtown Austin reminded me that “there’s not much you can do for brain damage.”
Like seeks like. Love is love. Let it be. Maybe Zelensky can MC.
November 3, 2022 @ 9:21 pm
Who cares. CMAs are trash anyways.
November 4, 2022 @ 7:05 am
What happened to Austin City Limits? The acts they book these days have nothing to do with Austin or country music.
November 4, 2022 @ 7:30 am
Yes, Maren Morris just did a taping. I think we’ll see more and more of this as the Nashville influence continues to encroach on the institutions of Austin, but ACL has been trending away from Austin music for years now.
November 7, 2022 @ 8:35 am
I DVR it and every week it’s some emo pop band that draws 100 people
November 4, 2022 @ 4:01 pm
It’s just another excuse for the Morgan Wallen Stans (and the bots aka Applebees Man’s bought followers, who are literally the only “people” who even care about Walker Hayes) to rise up and fuck up country music. Who cares. I’ve found reruns of 90s country award shows on YouTube. Tons of steel guitar, fiddles, and real artistry. And Clay Walker’s ass in those tight Wrangler jeans. ????
November 4, 2022 @ 4:52 pm
Morgan Wallen is just fine.
November 7, 2022 @ 3:35 am
It’s also worth nothing that the entire raison d’être of the ACM Awards (which is older than the CMAs)….was to raise the profile of country music ON THE WEST COAST. With no indication now that they’ll EVER return West, the ACM founders must be rolling over in their graves. In the CMA vs. ACM battle (like VHS vs. Betamax), CMAs clearly won.
November 8, 2022 @ 1:44 pm
Bobby Bones can be heard here in Windsor,Ont.,where I’ve lived my entire life.
November 8, 2022 @ 11:19 pm
One thing to say about cma this year theyre gonna rock with idol payton manning as one of the host fuck luke bryan i hope we hear the power of a tribute to the judds wyonna did a hell of a performance on cmt coal miners daughter the music and life of loretta that was awesome.. hqve bobby bones jhost cma i love that guy.
November 10, 2022 @ 9:54 am
Good move !
[ human shit deserves respect–and it will find it in Austin ].