On Tuesday, Country Music Television grabbed industry attention with the announcement that its video time would be split evenly between male and female artists. Immediately, social media began speculating on whether Country radio would follow suit. But CMT’s announcement came a day after Bell Media’s CKLC (Pure Country 99) Kingston, Ontario, began a week of 50/50 daytime airplay for male and female artists.
Starting tomorrow, our station is committing one week to completely EQUAL airplay, for male & female artists, 6am-6pm. Our mission is to show women that the problem is not with them & that listeners want to hear them. We need YOUR support‼️
— Kingston’s Pure Country (@PureCountry99) January 20, 2020
CKLC launched last summer against Rogers’ CKXC (93.5 Country). It’s got a formidable challenge, debuting with a 4.5 share to CKXC’s 18 share in the recently released fall ’19 ratings. As you might expect from a recent Country launch, it’s the newer/hotter of the two stations — a Hot AC in texture and design to CXKC’s more AC-leaning yesterday-and-today approach.
In the U.S., it’s often the hotter/younger Country stations that have the most severe gender imbalance. Yesterday-and-today Country stations are able to reach back to the Faith Hill/Shania Twain-dominated late ‘90s, where strong-testing female-artist gold titles are undeniable. A station on the hot/new template often spans the format’s eight-year evolution from “bro country” to “boyfriend country.” In a story on the CMT announcement, PD Brittany Thompson told AP this week that CKLC was already 40% female in its currents, but had fewer female library titles to choose from.
Both Pure Country 99 and 93.5 Country geo-block their streams to the U.S., but I was able to listen to audio of both stations in the 3 p.m. hour on Jan. 22.
As heard on Wednesday, Pure Country 99 wasn’t talking about the 50/50 mix on the air. (It had done so on Monday, but not since.) The station was also scheduled in such a way that the intent wasn’t obvious. Looking at a monitor of a given hour, there might be one more male-led title than female, or up to four male-led songs in a row. But there was also a stretch of five songs that contained three female solo acts and two male/female duets. Overall, there were repeated segues between female artists of the sort whose sparsity in the U.S. has newly exacerbated the controversy.
Given its template, Pure Country 99 was probably already hot and up-tempo. On Wednesday afternoon, it was both of those things, but it was also varied. The male records were mostly love songs — the bulk of them would qualify as “boyfriend country,” but most of those were also among the most up-tempo examples of the genre. Beyond the gender balance issue, today’s Country is contending with a lack of tempo and issues of lyrical and stylistic sameness. The female titles broke up the sameness of the male songs and provided tempo as well.
Here’s the station just before 3 p.m. Canadian content titles — those that satisfy the station’s 35% Cancon requirement that stations have — are designated “CDN.” Songs not from 2019-20 are shown by year. I’ve attempted to characterize the Canadian titles not getting significant U.S. airplay.
- Madeline Merlo, “Unraveling” (2018) (CDN) — mid-tempo, similar to “Girl Crush” in feel
- Kelsea Ballerini, “Dibs” (2014)
- Aaron Goodvin, “You Are” (2018) (CDN) — a boyfriend Country lyric, but up-tempo
- Tenille Towns, “Jersey on the Wall (I’m Just Asking)” (CDN)—currently the No. 1 Country song in Canada
- Jade Eagleson, “Lucky” (CDN) — Jade is a twangy male artist. Again, boyfriend country but rocking
- Carrie Underwood, “Dirty Laundry” (2015)
- Jimmie Allen, “Make Me Want To”
- Reklaws, “Long Live The Night” (2018) (CDN) — a male/female duet with the same up-tempo folk feel as “Woman Amen” or numerous Mumford-inspired Modern AC hits
- Lady Antebellum, “Bartender” (2014)
- MacKenzie Porter, “About You” (2018) (CDN) – Mid-tempo and pulsating. A clever lyric about writing a song about one’s ex
- Jason Aldean, “We Back”
- Eric Church, “Monsters”
- Kristin Carter, “Karma” (CDN) — Mid-to-up-tempo, a high-energy breakup/revenge song
- Lindsay Ell, “I Don’t Love You” (CDN)
- Jordan Davis, “Take It From Me” (2018)
- Billy Currington, “Details”
- Jon Pardi, “Heartache Medication”
- Blake Shelton, “God’s Country”
- Carrie Underwood, “Blown Away” (2012)
It’s interesting to note that rival CKXC played four songs by female soloists in the same hour. However:
- It also played back-to back females twice during the hour.
- One of those two back-to-back segues was gold (Lee Ann Womack’s “I Hope You Dance” to Maren Morris’ “My Church”), but one was between a Canadian current and recurrent, one of which was Emily Reid’s “Good Time Being a Woman.”
- There were four female artists during the hour, but three additional male titles with female features. That would bring CKXC’s total to 50% as well, although only the Blake Shelton/Gwen Stefani title, “Nobody But You,” comes close to being a true duet.
- The Lee Ann Womack title was part of a feature called “Girl Power-Play.” The song was preceded by a vignette featuring Canadian country act Bobby Wills saluting Womack.
CKXC’s mix was, by design, more ballad-to-mid-tempo. Whether you count its gender split as comparable to CKLC, or not, it was still well ahead of similar U.S. stations. WFRY isn’t monitored, but I looked at another well-known Upstate New York Country station for the same hour. During the same hour, that station played only one female title, “The House That Built Me” by Miranda Lambert.
If you believe that there is a malaise in current Country music and radio, it’s difficult to pinpoint which of its variables listeners are chafing at — lack of female artists, lack of tempo, stylistic imbalance, too many similar lyrics? It’s true that any ratings slippage at the format hasn’t been decisively connected to the female-artist issue, but it’s also baffling why anybody would bother defending the status quo so vigorously. Couldn’t the current music improve on multiple fronts? What if current PDs aren’t really “playing the hits,” but “playing the chart”? What if that chart doesn’t have enough hits in its current form?
If Country PDs blame anything now, it’s being “too pop.” Yet, one of the format’s biggest hits of the last 18 months was Bebe Rexha & FGL’s “Meant to Be,” Now, Maren Morris’ “The Bones” has just cracked the top 5, owing, in part, to its support from Hot AC and even some Triple-A and CHR stations. One of the ironies of the current situation is that when female artists have multi-format support, they have a much clearer path at their own format, which also hearkens back to Faith and Shania’s success of the late ‘90s. So if “too pop” is the issue, and there’s no demand for female acts, why are “Meant to Be” and “The Bones” among the most undeniable hits of the last few years?
As for CKXC, the reader can and will have varying opinions on whether being 30% female on a yesterday-and-today Country station is good, or just better than its American counterpart. The “it can’t hurt to do something” argument is harder to make with an 18-share radio station. Then again, CKXC seems to have taken more steps to address the issue than many of its American counterparts. And one thing is clear. You can play two females in a row, even twice in the same hour, and still have an 18 share.