Women Hold Four of Five CMA Single Nominations. Country Radio Gave Them 8 Percent.

Two numbers, drawn from roughly the same twelve months. On the ballot for the 60th CMA Awards, four of the five Single of the Year nominations went to songs by women, the first time that has happened in the history of the category. On American country radio in 2025, songs by women accounted for 8.08 percent of airplay, the lowest figure in a data series that reaches back to 2002.

Both are true. What they describe is an industry whose prize committee and whose distribution system have quietly stopped agreeing about what country music sounds like, and that split matters to anyone in Central Florida deciding which artists are worth a ticket.

What the ballot says

The 60th CMA Awards air from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on November 18, 2026, with Lainey Wilson hosting for a third consecutive year. Ella Langley leads the field with nine nominations and holds two of the five Single of the Year slots herself, for “Choosin’ Texas” and “Be Her,” which makes her only the fifth artist in CMA history to pull that off as a lead artist in a single year. Miranda Lambert picked up her nineteenth nomination for Female Vocalist of the Year, the most anyone has ever received in that category, passing Reba McEntire. Kacey Musgraves, Megan Moroney and Wilson fill out the rest of that ballot line.

This is not a token gesture buried in a craft category. Entertainer of the Year includes Langley alongside Luke Combs, Cody Johnson, Chris Stapleton and Wilson. Read only the nominations and you would conclude 2026 was the year the format’s center of gravity shifted.

What the airplay data says

Then you look at the spins. Research published in March 2026 by Jada Watson through SongData tracked the share of US country radio airplay going to songs by women: 9.87 percent in 2023, 8.39 percent in 2024, and 8.08 percent in 2025. That last figure is the bottom of a series that starts in 2002. Including mixed-gender collaborations lifts it to about 9.0 percent, which still leaves songs by men at roughly 89.9 percent.

The per-station arithmetic is what makes it land. An average country station plays about 338 songs in a day. Twenty nine of those are by women. Two hundred ninety four are by men. Over an hour, that is one song by a woman against eleven by men. Concentration makes it narrower still: Wilson, Moroney and Langley together absorbed 44.6 percent of all airplay given to women in 2025. Watson’s own word for that pattern is tokenism, and the arithmetic does not argue with her. Songs by women of colour averaged 0.01 percent of airplay that year.

The one encouraging line in the data is that four songs by women reached number one at country radio in 2025, two from Wilson and one each from Moroney and Langley. The last year with four was 2021. That is movement at the top of the chart with none underneath it.

Two systems that stopped agreeing

The explanation is not conspiracy, it is incentive. CMA voters are industry professionals who vote on craft, moment and reputation inside a business that has spent years discussing this exact problem. A radio programmer answers to quarter hour listening estimates and, in most markets, to playlists shaped by national chart performance and consultancy research rather than by local judgment. One of those systems rewards the record people in Nashville admire. The other rewards the record least likely to make anyone turn the dial. Those used to be close to the same record. They are not anymore.

What broke the link is streaming. An artist can now build a genuine national audience without a single programmer’s permission, which means the award ballot can register demand that the airplay data never sees. The practical consequence is that country radio has become a lagging indicator of the format rather than its gatekeeper, and a lot of booking decisions are still being made as though that were not true.

What this looks like from Orlando

Central Florida has one full signal country outlet, K92.3, which has been on the air in some country form since 1982 and is one of the longer running country stations in a top fifty market. We have not pulled a month of logs for it, and we will not single out any one station on the basis of national figures. The point is structural. In markets of this size the playlist is largely a function of national chart data, so a listener in Apopka or Winter Garden hears something close to the national ratio whether or not anyone locally intends that.

So if you want to hear the records about to be handed trophies on November 18, a streaming playlist gets you there faster than the dial does. That is a strange thing to write about a format built on radio.

Our stake, and the case against us

We book a festival lineup, so we have an interest here and we will name it. Radio airplay is the cheapest available shorthand for the question “who can sell a ticket in this market,” and leaning on that shorthand is exactly how a bill ends up looking like last year’s chart. We have used it. We also benefit commercially from arguing that a festival lineup can surface artists radio has not, because that argument is, in plain terms, a reason to buy a ticket from us rather than stay home with the radio on.

The honest counter deserves real weight. Radio is not a public service and a programmer who loses listening loses the station, along with the jobs attached to it. Spin counts measure what gets played, not what an audience would have chosen, and if there were obvious unserved demand, the station that tested it would be rewarded for the risk. Beyond that, an awards ballot is produced by a few thousand self-selecting industry members who can reward a compelling narrative as easily as a popular record. Four of five is a remarkable number, but it is a number produced by voters, not by listeners.

Which leaves a test rather than a verdict. Watch the airplay charts in January and February for whatever wins Single of the Year on November 18. If a CMA trophy still moves spins, it will show up there within ten weeks. If it does not, then the ballot and the playlist have genuinely become separate products describing separate audiences, and every promoter in this state should be building lineups accordingly.

Frequently Asked: Do CMA Awards wins increase country radio airplay?

Historically a major CMA win produced a measurable spin bump in the weeks that followed, but the 2025 airplay data makes that link look weaker than it used to be. Songs by women took four of five Single of the Year nominations for the 2026 ceremony while songs by women held only 8.08 percent of total country airplay, so a ballot that favors an artist no longer guarantees the format will follow.

The Sunset Country Festival takes place on April 3, 2027 at the Apopka Amphitheater, 3710 Jason Dwelley Pkwy, Apopka, FL 32712. Gates open at 2:00 PM.

Sources & References

• SongData, Jada Watson: songs by women on US country radio, March 2026
• 60th Annual CMA Awards, date, host and full nominations
• Billboard: Ella Langley leads the 2026 CMA nominations
• Holler: 2026 CMA Awards date, nominees and performers

Disclaimer: Important Notice

The information published in this article is based on publicly available data from official sources, press releases, and music industry publications available at the time of writing. Tour dates, ticket prices, venue details, setlists, album release schedules, award nominations, lineup announcements, and all other details referenced in this article are subject to change at any time without prior notice.

Sunset Country Fest makes no representations or warranties, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of any information contained herein. All changes, cancellations, rescheduling, postponements, or modifications to any events, releases, tour dates, award results, or announcements referenced in this article are the sole responsibility of the artists, record labels, talent agencies, concert promoters, venues, and any other third parties involved.

Sunset Country Fest shall not be held liable for any decisions, travel arrangements, ticket purchases, or other actions taken by readers based on the information published here. We strongly encourage all readers to verify current details, including dates, venues, ticket availability, and event status, directly through official artist channels, venue box offices, and authorized ticketing platforms before making any plans or purchases.

Last updated: October 22, 2026 · Sunset Country Fest Editorial Team · Contact Us