No Female Artists in Top 20 of Airplay Chart For First Time

[recordyear]

Feel like this is important/pathetic enough to have its own thread.

On Billboard's latest Country Airplay chart, dated Dec. 8, the top 20 is a boys club, and a historic one at that: for the first time since the radio-based survey launched in January 1990, the top 20 does not feature any female acts.

The highest position held by a woman on Country Airplay this week belongs to Carrie Underwood's "Love Wins," which climbs 25-22 (up 13 percent to 8.2 million audience impressions in the week ending Dec. 2, according to Nielsen Music).

Looking at the entire 60 positions on Country Airplay, seven female acts appear beyond Underwood: Mindy Smith (as featured on Kenny Chesney's "Better Boat," at No. 27); Kelsea Ballerini ("Miss Me More," No. 32); Hillary Lindsey (as featured on Randy Houser's "What Whiskey Does," No. 40); duo Maddie & Tae ("Friends Don't," No. 41); trio Runaway June ("Buy My Own Drinks," No. 44); Lauren Alaina ("Ladies of the '90s," No. 47); and Carly Pearce ("Closer to You," No. 53).

Notably, Alaina's song recalls a bountiful era for women on the charts (country, pop and beyond). "I was raised on radio waves, where the ladies dominated," she sings, as she shouts out "Britney" (Spears) and smashes by Shania Twain, Destiny's Child, Dixie Chicks and more.

How does this week's Country Airplay top 20 compare historically? Let's look back to this time in 1990 and every five years after to see how songs by women fared.

As recently as three years ago, women were far better represented in the chart's upper reaches. (Totals below include women in solo roles, both as leads and featured artists, and duos/groups with female members.)

Dec. 1, 1990: five
No. 1, K.T. Oslin, "Come Next Monday"
No. 11, Holly Dunn, "You Really Had Me Going"
No. 15, Reba McEntire, "You Lie"
No. 16, Highway 101, "Someone Else's Trouble Now"
No. 19, Baillie and the Boys, "Fool Such as I"

Dec. 2, 1995: three
No. 4, Lorrie Morgan, "Back in Your Arms Again"
No. 10, Pam Tillis, "Deep Down"
No. 19, Dolly Parton & Vince Gill, "I Will Always Love You"

Dec. 2, 2000: seven
No. 5, Dixie Chicks, "Without You"
No. 6, Sara Evans, "Born to Fly"
No. 13, Patty Loveless, "That's the Kind of Mood I'm In"
No. 14, Jo Dee Messina, "Burn"
No. 15, Terri Clark, "A Little Gasoline"
No. 17, Lee Ann Womack, "Ashes by Now"
No. 20, Reba McEntire, "We're So Good Together"

Dec. 3, 2005: six
No. 12, Faith Hill, "Like We Never Loved Before"
No. 13, Little Big Town, "Boondocks"
No. 14, Carrie Underwood, "Jesus, Take the Wheel"
No. 18, Martina McBride, "(I Never Promised You) A Rose Garden"
No. 19, Sugarland, "Just Might (Make Me Believe)"
No. 20, Brad Paisley feat. Dolly Parton, "When I Get Where I'm Going"

Dec. 4, 2010: six
No. 3, The Band Perry, "If I Die Young"
No. 6, Reba McEntire, "Turn On the Radio"
No. 8, Sugarland, "Stuck Like Glue"
No. 9, Carrie Underwood, "Mama's Song"
No. 14, Miranda Lambert, "Only Prettier"
No. 19, Lady Antebellum, "Hello World"

Dec. 5, 2015: four
No. 2, Carrie Underwood, "Smoke Break"
No. 8, Cam, "Burning House"
No. 13, Jana Kramer, "I Got the Boy"
No. 16, Kelsea Ballerini, "Dibs"

Threading 2015 to today, four women (Underwood, Maren Morris, Rhiannon Giddens and Alaina) ranked in the top 20 on the Dec. 3, 2016 chart, and three (Pearce, Morris and Ballerini) did on Dec. 2, 2017.

"Unfortunately, I wish I could say I'm shocked by this statistic, but I'm not," says Johnny Chiang, director of operations, Cox Media Group Houston, which includes Country Airplay reporter KKBQ. "It's sad, really. In all other aspects of life, we're seeing women thrive by becoming CEOs, film directors, best-selling authors, etc. In country music, we really don't have the female talent to compete? That's just ridiculous."

"Even if we narrowed the focus to modern music," Chiang muses, "we have the likes of Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, Camila Cabello, Lady Gaga, Adele and many more dominating the charts. And, in our own country world, we have powerful women like Cindy Mabe [president, UMG Nashville], Kristen Williams [senior vp, radio and streaming, Warner Music Nashville], Lesly Simon [general manager, Pearl Records], Kerri Edwards [owner/president, KP Entertainment], Virginia Davis [president, G-Major Management], Donna Jean Kissauer [vp, radio and tour marketing, Borman Entertainment] and many more shaping our business.

"The disparity on the country charts just doesn't make sense and doesn't reflect the female talent we have in our midst," Chiang says. "I don't know whose fault it is, but everyone needs to look at themselves in the mirror and ask if they're contributing to this issue."

www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8488730/no-women-country-airplay-chart-top-20?utm_source=twitter

[g8erboi]

Just when you think country radio can’t become any more disgusting... Radio programmers, do better.

[raylatch98]

It's so weird because I remember around this time a year ago I was excited for the female prospects heading into 2018. Carly Pearce just had her first #1 with "Every Little Thing", Lindsay Ell and Cam both had very strong add dates heading out of the gates with "Criminal" and "Diane. Not to mention Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini were well on their way to #1s. I also felt decently well about Lauren Alaina and Runaway June with "Doin Fine" and "Wild West".

As for the female songs right now on the chart. "Love Wins", is only doing okay it feels like. I do feel good about "Miss Me More" and "Closer to You" and maybe "Buy My Own Drinks" as well. I do feel decently well with "Ladies In The 90s" as that seems like a dark horse to do pretty well, but "Friends Don't" by Maddie & Tae seems to be just there on the chart barely doing anything and wouldn't be shocked if the label drops it.

Besides Maren Morris I can't think of another female act who is releasing new music anytime soon.

I am not disgusted with country radio, I have just grown kind of numb to this stuff and honestly it no longer offends me and it's become such a norm now that I don't get upset about it.

Is the research faulty yes. But 2018 was a great year for country music in terms of popularity, which despite sales not being big with radio they naturally like to play songs that are popular as more popular equals better listener tune in.

The female songs that were hits this year on the radio ("I Could Use A Love Song", "Rich", "Legends") none of them were that big of hits impact wise especially since none of them even made the Top 50 on the Hot 100, yes Maren Morris was on the backhalf of her album era, so I will give her some slack. But even the female songs that managed to succeed were rather ho hum impact wise.

I can totally see radio people looking at the fact that the female lead songs this year weren't that big of hits with the public impact wise and be even more hesitant with female artists since callout has never been that good for female artists, and if the general public isn't feeling too hot on a song sung by a female singer, than does anyone care too much about that song?

Rally needs to be a female artist who full on embraces streaming head on and can somehow pull in some great streaming numbers like Luke Combs, Dan + Shay, FGL, and Kane Brown off the top of my head. I feel like if there is 1 female singer who streams very well that may give radio slightly more incentive to slowly play the songs sung by women.

[recordyear]

Dec 6, 2018 0:02:23 GMT -5 raylatch98 said:

Besides Maren Morris I can't think of another female act who is releasing new music anytime soon.

I think Brandy Clark may be somewhat relevant to the discussion. Girl Next Door peaked at #39 on Country Airplay chart despite the odds are against her.

Dec 6, 2018 0:02:23 GMT -5 raylatch98 said:

Rally needs to be a female artist who full on embraces streaming head on and can somehow pull in some great streaming numbers like Luke Combs, Dan + Shay, FGL, and Kane Brown off the top of my head. I feel like if there is 1 female singer who streams very well that may give radio slightly more incentive to slowly play the songs sung by women.

It is not like female artists don't try to embrace streaming. They just don't succeed in it. Kelsea Ballerini did good streaming on her first album era (particularly Peter Pan). Then the second album era happened.
None of Maren Morris' four singles from first album charted on US Spotify daily Top 200 for once despite she is heavily promoted there.
Brooke Eden has a song with 20 million streams there. So did she break out in country radio?
Since radio doesn't support women anyway, the more likely road to success for new country women is social networking site engagement similar to Kane Brown. As far as I know, Jessie James Decker did a lot.

[Deleted]

Its gotten to the point where Kacey Musgraves didn’t even bother releasing a single to country radio from “Golden Hour” because she knew they wouldn’t play it anyway.

[KeepDeanWeird]

On the flip side, how many female artists ARE being promoted to radio. It’s almost become chicken-egg. Labels focusing energy on acts that will get played; female artists consider other genres/avenues for music. What makes this week’s chart worse is the LW is the highest ranking single - and it’s certainly ranks as one of Carrie’s least appealing singles.

It’s really a shame - but it’s too easy to blame the programmers when audiences are the ultimate deciders. If Country radio’s ratings/demographics were suffering from the testosterone dominant playlists, change would happening.

[raylatch98]

Dec 6, 2018 0:50:02 GMT -5 recordyear said:

Dec 6, 2018 0:02:23 GMT -5 raylatch98 said:

It is not like female artists don't try to embrace streaming. They just don't succeed in it. Kelsea Ballerini did good streaming on her first album era (particularly Peter Pan). Then the second album era happened.
None of Maren Morris' four singles from first album charted on US Spotify daily Top 200 for once despite she is heavily promoted there.
Brooke Eden has a song with 20 million streams there. So did she break out in country radio?
Since radio doesn't support women anyway, the more likely road to success for new country women is social networking site engagement similar to Kane Brown. As far as I know, Jessie James Decker did a lot.

My point was more along the lines of is their a female artist who is like a Kane Brown or Luke Combs before being signed to a label? Basically is there a female artist who is not signed to a major label that already has a semi established fanbase, because if there is I can see her being very successful. Unfortunately said female country artist I do not know is out there.

In terms of Brooke Eden not breaking out in country radio with that song, I think that was more because Red Bow sucks promoting songs to radio so she was doomed from the start. 

I will say in recent years the female on country radio problem has gotten marginally better. Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini have had multipile hits, Carrie Underwood is still able to at least go Top 20 with her singles, and Carly Pearce/Lauren Alaina has seen decent success overall. Better than in 2014 which country radio only really supported Miranda Lambert, and Carrie Underwood at most?

[lady𝓐fan]

Wow, that is absolutely shameful. I’m surprised no one has tried to boycott country radio yet.

[collinkottke]

The sad part to me isn't even the top 20 part, it's the fact that only six females are on the chart right now (excluding the features of Mindy Smith and Hillary Lindsay because neither of them are that "featured" in either song, in my opinion). If we imagine that all these songs continue on the chart for a few more weeks, the total females on the chart will probably only hit maybe eight females with a lead from Maren Morris and some random other female who scratches her way into the chart. The most optimistic I can be is that 13% of the chart in the foreseeable future will have pure female voices on the songs and that's pathetic. It doesn't have to be a pure 50/50 split at radio between men and women, but that female number needs to be at least 25% (and that seems low to me).

[onebuffalo]

Support those female artists:

www.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/182348/radio-disney-country-launches-new-feature-in-suppo

[slowmo]

http://instagram.com/p/BrDvXngA-pd

[mellongraig]

And I'll bet Mediabase 24/7 will likely follow suit next week. It's really a shame that this is happening, but if you look at the Canadian version of the Billboard charts, it's not so bad with 3 solo women inside the top 20, one male/female duo as well, and a few that are not in the 20 but in the 40 on the most recent issue.

I think what we need to do is beg, plead, call, and email the radio stations across the country to play female artists more often (including newcomers plus independent, and current songs by females on the chart) to get back to the cycle that it used to be since the late 90s-early 2000s.

[travelrocks24]

For what it's worth, I went to the final gig of the Lady A/Darius Rucker tour this summer. There was a side stage which all women performed (Jessica Meuse, Lindsey Ell and Maddie and Tae). People were "forced" to watch it because the main seating area/lawn didn't open up till these performances were completed.

I am glad WMZQ gave women a fair shake at this particular gig.

I look at Musicrow.com weekly to see the photos and which artists are going to which stations. If radio would look at MB beyond the top 50, and try some of those songs out, people may realize there is a lot of talent out there but are not well known.

[mellongraig]

The other problem is that these songs on the charts today take a very slow climb, in fact some take like literally almost a full year to reach its peak position. We saw instances of women back in the late 90s/early-mid 2000s when they had a fair amount of staying power, and a good amount of weeks at or near the top spot. Something has to change to ensure the women get the fair amount of treatment they deserve. I wonder if women would have been in the top 20 today if they continued to use the old system Billboard used for a long while until 1990.

[Kat5Kind]

Yeah, the charts are so clogged up and everything takes so long to climb! I’m not sure what the solution is here.

[.indulgecountry]

CMT posted about this on their Facebook the other day and the comments were just filled with women(?!) who were like "So what? Women will be back in the Top 20 eventually, this is just how it works. Stop making it about gender!" I think I lost brain cells from what I read.

[Cody Wants Out...]

This article confirms that we've entered a dark era as country radio listeners and/or country music supporters. :'(

[mellongraig]

And this just in, Mediabase 24/7 follows suit to confirm that their recent update chart has no female artists in the Top 20. Unbelievable :( I feel like there needs to be more done to have women be back in the Top 20 and have staying power.

[mellongraig]

Dec 8, 2018 15:34:03 GMT -5 Kat5Kind said:

Yeah, the charts are so clogged up and everything takes so long to climb! I’m not sure what the solution is here.

I think they need to look at changing the recurring rule status or other things right now, with my suggestions:

• Be like Mediabase 24/7 and declare a song recurrent if for three weeks it has no bullet (plays/points). If the song remains #1 but loses its bullet, it is excluded and then it would have to fall for three straight weeks after that without a bullet to be declared recurrent
• Return to the 20 weeks/below #20 rule - they used that for a few years from 2001 until the start of 2004 when it became 20 weeks/below #15 for another few years. This would allow the song to stay on the charts until it falls below #20 before declaring recurrent and if more than 20 weeks
  
• Return to total detections as they used to from 1992 to January 2005
  

There are other things that could be considered but maybe this could solve a few solutions, not sure if they are the best way though.

[raylatch98]

Dec 9, 2018 22:43:40 GMT -5 mellongraig said:

And this just in, Mediabase 24/7 follows suit to confirm that their recent update chart has no female artists in the Top 20. Unbelievable :( I feel like there needs to be more done to have women be back in the Top 20 and have staying power.

There was no way to get a female into the Top 20 this week. The most they could hope for was Maren Morris holding onto in the Top 20 but "Rich" was already freefalling too fast to be slowed down enough.

I imagine country radio is already getting blasted by many people for this so they seem to be rushing "Love Wins" by Carrie Underwood (the only pure female song being promoted) to the Top 20 just to cool down the backlash.

[.indulgecountry]

Dec 10, 2018 7:54:57 GMT -5 raylatch98 said:

I imagine country radio is already getting blasted by many people for this so they seem to be rushing "Love Wins" by Carrie Underwood (the only pure female song being promoted) to the Top 20 just to cool down the backlash.

It may be the closest one to getting into the Top 20, but it's far from "the only pure female song being promoted" right now.

[raylatch98]

Dec 10, 2018 10:33:19 GMT -5 .indulgecountry said:

Dec 10, 2018 7:54:57 GMT -5 raylatch98 said:

I imagine country radio is already getting blasted by many people for this so they seem to be rushing "Love Wins" by Carrie Underwood (the only pure female song being promoted) to the Top 20 just to cool down the backlash.

It may be the closest one to getting into the Top 20, but it's far from "the only pure female song being promoted" right now.

Yeah, I meant to say it's the only pure female song being promoted that is close to the Top 20. I forgot to finish that part. My apologies.

[collinkottke]

It just hit me while there are no females in the Top 20, there are three songs in the Top 20 that have the word 'girl' in the title. Dustin Lynch's "Good Girl", Jason Aldean's "Girl Like You" and Riley Green's "There Was This Girl".

[classiccountryfan]

Dec 10, 2018 12:08:40 GMT -5 collinkottke said:

It just hit me while there are no females in the Top 20, there are three songs in the Top 20 that have the world 'girl' in the title. Dustin Lynch's "Good Girl", Jason Aldean's "Girl Like You" and Riley Green's "There Was This Girl".

And until a few weeks ago there was Chris Janson’s Drunk Girl.

[mellongraig]

I wonder if there is going to be a massive protest to the streets at all country radio stations (especially the ones that report to the charts)? Perhaps if we make enough noise, maybe they will hear the concerns. Only one can hope...

[dajross6]

Protesting radio stations will not do much. I don't think protesting does a whole lot unless you hit radio where it matters -- advertisers. If enough people protested the advertisers it *could* change. Still not likely unless you could make a big enough dent. As for the charts themselves, some people think it's a group of people who make decisions on what to play, and it isn't like that at all. The charts report on what panelists play, nothing else to decide.

[raylatch98]

I know why they won't because this has the potential to be a huge disaster. But I wish the major labels would be like "fuck it" let's sign a lot of female acts and send a lot of them within few months of each other to radio and hope at least a few stick. Maybe if radio had a lot of female choices they would play more women. Probably not, but it's the best idea I got.

[travelrocks24]

For the 2nd week in a row, the same thing that made history happens again. "Love Wins" is #21.

[.indulgecountry]

Dec 10, 2018 22:38:07 GMT -5 raylatch98 said:

I know why they won't because this has the potential to be a huge disaster. But I wish the major labels would be like "f**k it" let's sign a lot of female acts and send a lot of them within few months of each other to radio and hope at least a few stick. Maybe if radio had a lot of female choices they would play more women. Probably not, but it's the best idea I got.

There's already a lot of women signed to record labels and that have had their music released to radio, but that doesn't stop radio from not playing their songs. If they aren't playing the ones they've already got, signing a bunch more isn't going to change anything. They'll just get paid dust the same way they did with "Make Him Wait," "I Hate This," "Tailgate," "Got My Name Changed Back," "Damage," etc.

[raylatch98]

Dec 11, 2018 10:39:09 GMT -5 .indulgecountry said:

Dec 10, 2018 22:38:07 GMT -5 raylatch98 said:

I know why they won't because this has the potential to be a huge disaster. But I wish the major labels would be like "f**k it" let's sign a lot of female acts and send a lot of them within few months of each other to radio and hope at least a few stick. Maybe if radio had a lot of female choices they would play more women. Probably not, but it's the best idea I got.

There's already a lot of women signed to record labels and that have had their music released to radio, but that doesn't stop radio from not playing their songs. If they aren't playing the ones they've already got, signing a bunch more isn't going to change anything. They'll just get paid dust the same way they did with "Make Him Wait," "I Hate This," "Tailgate," "Got My Name Changed Back," "Damage," etc.

I mean do you think my idea is completely dumb and illogical? Yes or no? Best idea I can come up with. What would be your idea, since you seem to be more of a know it all at this subject than me.