I see this from Yahoo News. I haven't looked around to see if anybody else is carrying the story. Never trust one source.

QUOTE:
The ACM Awards hit an all-time low in the key adults 18-49 demographic with its 54th annual ceremony, broadcast on CBS Sunday night, which also pulled in the event’s lowest total-viewer tally in 12 years.The Reba McEntire-hosted awards show put up a 1.6 rating in the advertiser-coveted demo for the evening — its lowest on record — and brought in 9.903 million viewers, which is the smallest overall-eyeball count it’s hit since the 2007 ceremony posted 9.275 million.
The ACMs were also down 24 percent in the 18-49 range and 18 percent in total viewers vs. last year’s show.
However, the telecast’s Nielsen numbers still handed CBS first place in both measures for the evening.CBS was first in ratings with a 1.4 rating/7 share in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic and in total viewers with an average of 9.8 million, according to preliminary numbers.
Read original story Ratings: ACM Awards on CBS Fall to All-Time Low in Key Demo At TheWrap.
END QUOTE.


So, if I'm reading it right the 'market', the young people with money in their pockets for music, didn't tune in as fans. They may be buying product, streaming, downloads, hard copy CD's, vinyls. I don't know. They may be buying tickets. I don't know. But as 'fans', wanting to see their favorite singers/players in the Country Music biz, they tuned out.
Spring is here. It was awfully nice out in many places and, "Little Darlin', it's been a long, cold, lonely winter." Maybe they opted to just 'be' somewhere else.
There are "Fifty-seven channels and nothin' on," so maybe they watched the nothin' on some other channel.

But...maybe...just maybe...the music just isn't 'hooking' them. And so they're keeping their money in their pockets, or, horror of horrors, spending it elsewhere, terror of terrors, on some other genre of music.

I just wonder what the real reason is for 'staying away in droves'. You can bet lots of people for whom marketing country music is their profession, they're scratching their heads trying to get the wheels turning to figure out why, and planning what to do about it.

My advice: Make better music. Not that what they played last night wasn't any good. I couldn't hear the vocals well enough to get the words. But that may be just me. All music is hit and miss with audiences. But I think the doors are opening again. The Artist & Repertoire man/woman is coming out of the office, going out to venues, listening to music, trying to find authentic Songs by authentic Songwriters, trying to find new artists with a product those 18-49'ers will mine gold for. The competition is on. Everybody better step up their game or next year the story may be a rerun, 58 channels, and nothin' on.

I listen to some sample of all twelve songs on an artist CD on the net and they all sounded the same. There was not a mixture of tempos, all were in the same tempo except for maybe one song, they had basically the same tune, same instruments and little if any story to the songs, and that was a country CD. It was boring.

I think its simply that music is considered free, i dont think anybody buys anything any more. I recall Roger Daltry, one of the biggest rock icons of our times saying he wasnt going to release any new albums because nobody is buying them. So what chance does an indie have?

Most millenials have no idea what its like to have to buy music. They were born into a world where music being free was the norm. and once that Genie's out of the bottle it aint going back in. I can hear any song i want, even the most obscure song right now in 5 seconds for free.

Now, that MIGHT change if artists got away from singles and started making full length albums, and included stuff like a shot at a free ticket to a show, or a free back stage pass, etc, and if the albums were concept albums, where all the songs fit the whole, it might make sense to buy the whole thing in one shot. But with the focus on singles, why would you need the hear anything else, the hit single is all there is.

But in reality, as a fan of music, it couldnt be a better time for the LISTENER. I can only imagine if i had acces to every song ever made when I was in school. I had to use my paper route money to buy my absolute favorite music. So, i also couldnt hear 1% of what i can hear now, so it creates a bigger audience for artists, there's just no money in it.

Everett, I had the same experience with an artist I won't name for the courtesy of being a gentleman. One Song, a cover of a different Songwriter, maybe with that Songwriter singing with the artist, had a different tempo. That sameness becomes a monotonous hypnotic, which is not what I'm seeking for my entertainment, and my money.

I've become so mistrustful of what folks will offer I almost won't buy a package of music I have not heard first, even great old favorites from back when the world was young, unless it's a dollar in a yard sale. Usually my caution is proven. I spent a dollar to find out they don't spark my entertainment plug.

Another artist, same thing, every Song, same tempo. Interesting poetry in the Lyric, but somewhat obscure as a story I could grasp as having a beginning, a muddle, and an end. That interesting poetry was a Line here, a Line there, not a whole 'poem', a cognizable storyline.

Yet another artist, whose CD I paid full price for, big hit single, the only Song out of the 12 or 14 I liked.

'Product' some time back took on a 'manufactured' sound. Some Songs I literally listened and recognized that all these Lines in the Verse were fabricated to lead up to THE Hook, the title, but they didn't tell a good story, and the title wasn't all that interesting without one.

A Song can be written any number of ways. I usually write with guitar in hand, something I'm playing inspiring a Lyrical Line, and I'm off with a story. I usually find the title, THE Hook, when it's time for it. The 'rule': "Don't bore us! Get to the Chorus!"

I've written a couple whole Songs while driving, picked up the guitar when I got home and found the chords to work it.

I don't think I've ever written down a Line and thought, "I'll work on that someday," and actually done it that way. I know it can work that way though. Songs are flexible like that, malleable, words, concepts, imagination of realities, anything can go.

But I think the 'industry' became just that, an industry trying to manufacture Songs and artists. They have to sign somebody. They have to 'cut' and 'release' something, or they're out of business. And there may be an element of let's do it all ourselves, own it all, and rake in all the profit.

I was surprised to find Record Labels told artists, "We're taking all the profit of those million seller hard-copy sales. You go make your money touring." Artists had to learn to merchandise, ticket sales, t-shirts, hats, pictures, whatever they could sell to make 'touring' profitable. Some could; some couldn't. Robbie Robertson may have summed it up: "It's a god-d---ed impossible life." (Ooo! Song idea; "Impossible Life". I'll write that down and maybe someday I'll manufacture a Song with it. LOL)

When hard-copy sales collapsed the Record Labels came back to the artists wanting to be cut in for a share of the ticket sales, merchandising, all the profit mechanisms they told artists they had to develop on their own.

There's the answer: The Indie artist has to carve out a niche, working from their home base, a 'regional' area they want to 'work', getting an audience to know them and want to hear them again, an audience who will come to the venues that sign them to play, and buy the downloads, hard-copy product, t-shirts, pay the 'cover' charge or buy the tickets. If you're tremendously successful they'll come sniffing and want to partner with you to increase your 'region', broaden your 'fame', 'market' you to a national or global audience, and share your success. Meanwhile, your success can be quite adequate without national name-recognition or global fame.

It's that transition thing I keep telling people about. You start out as a creative hobbyist. This is fun and personally entertaining. Then friends and family encourage you and you play for people who aren't obligated to like you because they're friends or family; and they DO! So you become the entertainer, playing free shows, start to get paid to play, and suddenly you're accidentally transitioning from creative hobbyist to being a 'company marketing product'. Suddenly you need to know more about being a company, something you haven't studied, and now you need to study it to make it work, to not get robbed by someone who has studied it. For some being in 'business' has entertainment value just like being a creative hobbyist did. For others, it's a whole new task, work, not play, boring, annoying, relentless, something you have to do to pay the bills. Such is life.

Fdemetrio, I think that's an important point. The single is all there is. Record Labels in recent years started doing Single Song Contracts with artists. That's all you have? We'll take it. I wonder how it worked out for the Songwriter, for the artist. Was it beneficial? Did they make money? Did it improve their ability to get gigs? Were they able to come up with another 'single' to follow up with and keep the money-ball rolling?

I think people go to live concerts for the same reason Edmund Hillary climbed Mount Everest: "Because it's there." It's not that they want to hear that great repertoire of 30 Songs the artist has released and that made them fans. They'll hear the one or two hit singles, in a mix of a bunch of other mediocre product, but that stuff won't matter because they're on a date, or with a group of friends. It's a social event, more than a concert. The 'fan' aspect of what's going on onstage is less important than what's going on in the seat next to you.

So the idea of following the artist to their next gig is diminished, unless 'she' wants you to take her there, unless your friends want to go, just as an excuse to get together again and create those good-time memories with each other. Watching the artists at the music awards show? Not so much. Yeah, Reba looked nice in all those dresses. All those pretty girls were fun to look at, onstage, in the audience with their boyfriends. But it just didn't generate the TV audience the 'sellers' hoped for.

They didn't promote it like they would a Superbowl did they? Selling all the acoutrement' of a Watch-Party? Did the pizza and beer and chips people encourage the audience to host or attend a house party for the event? Maybe they missed that hype-up prep to get a--es in the seats for TV.

Or maybe there just aren't enough singles the consumer feels strongly enough about to want to sit and see the artists play them on TV.

I couldn't hear the words. I'm not a chronic listener. I was traveling with a woman who was. She sang every word of every Song they played on country radio. One came on and she said, "I haven't heard this one!" I liked her voice better than the one on the radio, but the main point is that she had listened enough, and could apparently understand them, that she could sing along, word for word, note for note.

And those are the singles coming out of the radio.
Quoth the Fdemetrio: "The single is all there is."

So, write some singles. Every Song should have merits of supplying the demands to be someone's 'single'.

Well,
It has been well known for some time that the Bigger Labels want the Artist to write their own songs because they don't want to pay the full Mechanical License or in some cases no mechanical fees whatsoever. Practically no Major Artists from the past wrote their own songs. Some of the biggest artists didn't write anything, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Webb. So when everything sounds the same there is probably a reason for it.

Ray, I wonder what the motive is. Do they want the artist to write because they can easily use the contract to get a piece of the Publishing Royalties, maybe a piece of the Songwriting Royalties, own the Master Recording and so control the artist, and control Synchronization Licensing and access a piece of Mechanical Royalties? They do, and get a piece of the money at every turn.

Getting the artist on that 'legal' hook where they've signed away rights to all kinds of things before they realize it, 'legally' committing by their naivete' in signing without legal counsel is an old story in the biz.

And I can imagine the tedium of always searching for your next 'fix', the Publisher or Songwriter with a Song worthy of investment, to keep your artist in the spotlight, making money for you. They often hand the task of listening to it all down to a Song Screener with instructions to bring them the pearls, if any are found, and heave the oyster shells back into the sea.

So having a prolific 'hit' writer as 'your' artist could make life simpler for the label executives.

But why did the audience for the music awards shrink, last year, and again this year? There may be a fundamental shift in market preference going on. Knowing what it is could be an insight into what product the public isn't 'buying', in whatever form it's offered for sale, and to what they ARE buying, and in what form.

I see an article where Kelly Clarkson was mistaken for a 'seat-filler', a practice in TV award shows where people are hired to sit in empty seats, or seats when artists vacate to go onstage, so the viewing audience doesn't see empty seats and conclude that the show didn't draw a crowd, or make other negative conclusions the sellers want to avoid. I remember knowing they did seat-filling at the Oscars but never thought of it in other award shows.

Keep track and see how Garth's vinyl sales go. There was a CD boom for a while where people bought CD's of their old vinyls, upgrading to the new technology. Now the back-to-vinyl trend may be a fad, with varying success, varying by artist to artist, or it may be a flash in the pan, with limited staying power. Time will tell.

Anyone who has been paying attention to anything over the past few years is that millenials and ANYONE are not paying for music, and pretty much don't want to pay for ANYTHING. It's happening in all forms of entertainment, movies, television, all genres. They have DJ'S in pop, rock and hip hop that draw as many as some of the big bands or artists. Music is no longer in the FOREFRONT of people's attention. It is something in the background, and the BEATLES THEMSELVES could come out now and would not have the same impact on the culture they did in 64'. Life is to displaced and no one thing gets attention past a momentary flash in the viral universe.

You actually can't even judge modern music against the past. The eras have simply changed. Shorter attention spans, less dedication to any one song or artist. It's all fleeting and "just something else that's out there in this minute.:" And yes, we can all bemoan what we feel the lack of quality is, and there is plenty of truth in that, but the fact is that NOTHING is going to catch and keep the attention of the listeners of today or the future. And when you get endless supplies of anything, instantly, effortlessly, and for FREE, you are never going to have ratings, or money.

An unfortunate element of today's culture, but it is what it is.

People are tired of Awards shows that featured bought and paid for awards given to people who see it as a business plan and not art. They don't care about fake awards shows anymore. They've lost the truth of the viewers to see honest praise based on merit given to deserving material and not a stock bump move.

Yes, Marc/Brian; all factors.

This thing of not being able to get viewers for the 'big stars' is an obvious indicator of something. It may reveal a dynamic change in the consuming public that we can exploit to gain traction for ourselves.

The People have always wanted up-close and personal contact with the entertainers. Small venues have that to offer. Entertainers often overlook the opportunity to 'entertain' by sharing some offstage time to enrich the paying customers' experience. It may make the difference in how they do word-of-mouth advertising later, and forever, and whether they visit your merchandise table and buy something.

Seeing people on TV, even with elaborate 'sets', a massive cowboy boot collection, lights, color, action, lovely ladies, handsome gentlemen, wonderful dresses and outfits, the appeal of the closeups of the instruments (Did they do any?), seeing award winners speak extemporaneously, crack a joke, get emotional, just may not have the drawing power it once had. How they market their shows in future is under review, I'm sure.

But, again, that's 'them'. What about 'us'?

There's something going on and it may be the Indie artist's opportunity to penetrate the market in a 'big' way, in terms of dollars and cents. Your product may have more panache' because you're there, live and in color, a person, a persona, someone new in their lives, even in the superficial level of a one-night stand, hopefully with a return engagement scheduled.

Eyes up troops! See what you can make of this, ideologically, and economically.

I wonder what would happen if all music was banned every where for one year. Would people miss it? Would that search it out illegally like they did alcohol in the probation years. You never miss water until the well goes dry. You don't appreciate electricity until the power goes off. Will they crave new music the same way when it is not available?

Yes, Everett! LOL! Ain't nothin' like, "You cain't have it!" to make me say, "But I want it!" which is a prelude to, "I gotta have it!" and the Music Speakeasy is born! George Orwell could have written a great novel with the Music Police searching the musician's house, raiding the Music Speakeasy.

I'm getting the germ of a theory of 'familiarity-breeds-contempt'. I think 'image' was well-managed back in the old days, and peoples' personal frailties were kept secret, even when well known in the music towns. Glen Campbell and Tanya Tucker, rumor has it, used to have literal public fistfights as their relationship became adversarial. Johnny Cash and a list of other known musicians were into pills long before it became a more common exploration of the general public. Elvis' demise becomes a sordid stain on the elegant star image. They were in the 'Drug Sub-Culture' before we became a 'Drug Culture' where there are probably more recreational pharmaceutical explorers, if not regular 'users', than those who abstain. It could have been very detrimental to their careers had it been exposed to the general public, familiarity with such personal details breeding contempt for the squeaky clean image. Now, educated by exposure of those who came before, we are more cautious with how much esteem we'll bestow on any newcomer.

In fact, regarding drugs, having just returned to Just Plain Folks after years away, I wasn't surprised to note the many pharmaceuticals, medicinals mostly, I guess, advertised in the left-hand column. I wondered if it had become JPF, Just Pharmaceutical Folks.

But I don't think we want to know about peoples' divorces and drug use and sex lives and whatever other foibles of the human condition they're involved in. We begin to reject their music based on what we know about them. And becoming an eager fan, eager for a ticket, eager to see, to hear, to get the autograph, starts to diminish, in the individual and the fan-base at large. The days of the 'Idol' image fade as our 'idols' turn out to be humans. Soon, even a new 'idol' offering, one whose back-story and current lifestyle are unknown, doesn't engage us. Our caution against getting too far under the spell of the 'Like' button keeps us from idolizing them like we once did.

I still think I'm only scratching around on the fringes of a phenomenon though. Something's going on. What it is and how we can use it to our advantage, what we must do to gain advantage in a changed and changing world, might mean we can profit by supplying some new angle of demand. What do they want? When and where and how do they want it? I've advocated having your music available to whatever way they want to 'consume' it. Downloads? Got it on the net! Download card, here, at the live show? Got it. Hard copy CD? Vinyl? Sheet music? Selfie? Sure! Autograph? T-Shirt? The shirt I wore at the show tonight, still smelling of me? Well...You're weird buddy but, big smile, $45.00 and it's yours! Oh. It's for your girlfriend. Yeah. $40.00.

Yes, the no-viewers problem is about 'them'. Even if we can't figure out what's going on for 'them', what we have to figure out is how can it work to benefit 'us'.

if singles are what folks are looking for,then write 12 great singles and put them on an album,no filler,all killer.Don't get lazy.

Most people dont even have one good single!!!

My idea is/was to have concept albums, or at least musical pieces that intersect with tne next song, so that there is no track 1, track 2... easy to split up and put online alone, if three or four songs were all joined at the hip, then they would have to split the tracks and lose some of the music, or at least not get smooth seques.

Im sure people who dont buy music probably dont care if the songs come broken in two or three, but some may

As far as I'm concerned, regarding the ACM awards... it ain't Reba's fault! Country is no longer country. I don't buy records, CD's (except for used ones in thrift stores) and streaming is pure manure. If I buy anything... I want a hard copy in my hot little hands to take home and play at my leisure. (Preferably a CD) I don't need some robot suggesting a playlist to me. I consider my "taste" in music unique to me... and until big brother requires me to listen to Elijah Cummings, Adam Schiff or Nancy numb-noodle as I face Mecca... they can all perform the Russian National Anthem by breaking wind in coordinated unison.

Apple sucks, Google isn't much better and that prescription radio service is snot warmed over.

I grew up in the era of Radio and we were free to listen to whatever we liked provided we endure a few commercials. Stations began to seek more audience by telling how many commercials would be played and when it would happen. LOL! The average play vs. commercial ratio at one time was three to one. My uncle used to own a radio station... and it was not affiliated with a collection of stations who played what they were told to play at the exact time required. We played whatever the public called in to request... during the genre hour associated with a particular radio show. So we grew up believing music was more or less free if we would endure a few commercials.

Money was tight but when the 45 record and players came out, they were much more affordable and I would buy this or that whenever my allowance or paper route earnings would allow me that luxury. One thing for sure, Daddy didn't provide me with money to waste on stuff he didn''t think would be good for my immature brain.

I read from the Neilson reports that RAP is the biggest seller/market these days. Not a real good reflection on our National Intellect. The music biz is headed downhill fast... and deservedly so.