'American Country Awards' gives music fans voting power
Dec-06-2010

Even the host of Monday night's American Country Awards (8 ET/tape delay PT) needed some convincing that the show was a good idea.

After all, Trace Adkins reasoned, the genre already has three major televised awards shows: The Academy of Country Music Awards in April, the CMT Music Video Awards in June and the Country Music Association Awards in November.

"I was like, 'Really? Do we need another?' " says Adkins, who will host the live telecast from Las Vegas (8 ET/tape delay PT on Fox). "But when I learned more about it, I found that yes, we do. Finally we have an awards show that is voted on by the fans. It's not industry insiders who have agendas and political motivations."

Producer Bob Bain, who also has produced Fox's Teen Choice Awards and Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards, hopes to stave off brand confusion by giving the ACA a different pace. "I'm in the business of making awards shows that don't take themselves too seriously," he says.

Comedy will play an important part, with appearances by Rodney Carrington and Jeff Dunham.

Also, the ACA will pack 13 performances, from such artists as Jason Aldean, Alan Jackson, Toby Keith, Reba McEntire, Rascal Flatts and Blake Shelton, into two hours.

Historically, country awards shows are reliable ratings-getters. Last month's CMAs drew 16.5 million viewers, easily winning the night for ABC.

Plus, Adkins says, country acts offer another advantage.

"From a network standpoint, we're probably the easiest to handle," he says. "We show up, we're not high and we do our thing. And we're not having a competition for who has the biggest bodyguard, which is what the Grammys are. If you go to the Grammys, all it is is a bunch of huge guys body-guarding little guys. We don't do that."

The show may need a year or two to get the full support of the country industry, says Phyllis Stark, radio-info.com's executive editor for country music. "Anything that gets country music on TV in prime time is a good thing."

Bain believes that a chance for artists to get in front of a national audience and experience the inevitable sales bump during a peak buying season makes for a pretty good excuse to have a TV show.

"I call these things variety events masquerading as awards shows," he says. "The egos of country stars are no greater or less than the other stars I work with. We use the awards as a magnet to get them to the show. Then it's up to us to do something interesting with them."

Posted by Clay Kohut at 12:43 AM - Link to this entry  |  Share this entry  |  Print