Tennessee Report Makes Sorry ‘Post Tomato-Gate’ Reading

Head over to the Belles and Gals ‘Mission/Team Page’ and you’ll find the following section:

‘It is evident that female artists do not receive a fair deal in the country music industry. The comparative lack of radio play for female artists in comparison to their male counterparts is well documented. This has a knock-on effect. Male artists find it easier to secure record deals, sell tickets, secure advertising deals and enjoy many other perks which all lead to successful careers in the country music industry. Some in the industry point to this success as justification for the lack of equality in radio play – we simply see a vicious circle which needs to be broken.

To this end, Belles and Gals has a clear aim. The site is dedicated to promotion and support of all female country music artists at all stages of their career.‘

To this end, we were saddened to read an insightful report in The Tennessean this week, which illuminates the fact that the whole Tomato-Gate saga seems to have had no real impact on the country music industry. The report, by Cindy Watts, states that:’

‘For some, the flap sparked hope that bringing the issue to the surface would yield progress.

It hasn’t. In fact, by some metrics, women have lost ground in country music.

The percentage of purely female country songs charted by Country Aircheck dropped to 10.4 percent last year, down from 13 percent in 2016.’

The report goes on to detail that this imbalance isn’t just confined to one genre:

‘The issue isn’t limited to country music. A report from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative titled “Inclusion in the Recording Studio?” revealed that only 22.4 percent of all performers across the 600 most popular all-genre songs from 2012 to 2017 were female. In addition, 2017 represented a six-year low, with females comprising only 16.8 percent of popular artists on the top charts.

The report also showed that female songwriters and producers are even more in the minority. Only 12.3 percent of songwriters of the 600 most popular songs of the last six years were women and 2 percent of producers across 300 songs were female. The statistic translates into 1 female for every 49 males.‘

Fortunately, there is some good news for the industry. Initiatives such as ‘Change the Conversation’ and ‘Song Suffragettes’ are aiming to redress this imbalance, while here at Belles and Gals we’re trying to initiate some change from this side of the Atlantic. This week Bobby Bones announced that he’ll be broadcasting a national radio show to more than 100 radio stations, the show featuring only female artists.

While the article in general doesn’t make for great reading, you do feel by the end that there is some hope that a change is coming. 

To read the full article click here – https://eu.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2018/06/10/women-country-radio-tomatogate-music-row-kelsea-ballerini-maren-morris/675471002/

For more information about Song Suffragettes click here (who feature in the brilliant ‘Time’s Up’ video above) – http://www.songsuffragettes.com/

For more information about Change the Conversation click here – http://www.changetheconversation.net/

The article was written by Cindy Watts – https://twitter.com/CindyNWatts