April 13, 2020, Issue 700
ACM Breakdown With RAC & Damon
Across a four-day span in mid March, the Academy of Country Music postponed the 55th ACM Awards until September and created ACM Presents: Our Country to occupy the April 5 timeslot (Breaking News 3/19). The moves allowed approximately three weeks to put together a two-hour music special that drew 10 million viewers over two airings. Country Aircheck spoke with ACM CEO Damon Whiteside and Exec. Producer RAC Clark about the unprecedented upheaval and what it took to produce a socially distanced television show. Damon Whiteside CA: As you contemplated canceling the Vegas awards show, what were the factors at play that aren’t obvious to those of us looking at it from the outside? DW: Since the voting process has already happened and winners have been chosen, there were a lot of questions around the eligibility window, whether we’d give awards out now anyway, how we planned to maintain the integrity of the awards – and we thought RAC Clark about that quite a bit. Fortunately, we have Deloitte managing that for us. They’ve got the winners, and no one has seen them – including me. Nor will anyone see them until they’re revealed in September. This will give us an opportunity to highlight the nominees with a longer road to the ACMs, and we’re looking at ways to do that over the summer. Another big question is how it affects the show itself in terms of performances. RC: We were already deep into the process, being only three or four weeks away. We’d gone through every booking; Co-Exec. Producer Raj Kapoor and I had been through all the creative with the artists and managers. When we get to September, will those artists still want to perform those singles? If not those songs, what about the sets? It may be a total retooling of the look and feel. Are the sets you were building just in a warehouse in Vegas? (continued on page 7)
Sixth Figures: BMLG Records’ Brett Young celebrates his sixth consecutive No. 1 with his team. Pictured (top, l-r) are: BMLGR’s Michelle Tigard Kammerer, Cherylynne Nader, Madeline Farr and Andrew Thoen; (second row, l-r) BMLGR’s Matthew Hargis, BMLG’s Scott Borchetta, BMLGR’s Andi Brooks and Red Light’s Van Haze; (third row, l-r) BMLGR’s Stella Prado, Liz Santana Gregg, Young and BMLGR’s Jimmy Harnen; and (bottom) producer Dann Huff.
Music Biz Finds Relief In CARES Act
Thanks to the recent passing of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act (CAT 3/27), music industry professionals — songwriters, musicians, sound and light techs, road crews, producers and other selfemployed workers — are eligible for federal relief. Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) Exec. Dir. Bart Herbison was among those working with Congressional leaders to ensure the music community was covered in the $2 trillion stimulus package. “Most songwriters, artists, musicians and their support teams have not Bart Herbison previously been eligible for unemployment and such grants and loans,” explains Herbison. “They needed this relief to weather the loss of income during the pandemic.”
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