Is Fan Voting The Future? ACM Enlists Fans To Validate Industry Choices
Like it is for all Awards shows, the ACM final nominees announcement was a cause of joy and pain for various artists whose names did and did not appear on the coveted list. Some mainstream brands were missing in categories where they seemed essential and a few relative newcomers caught a wave that some might say was larger than the stage of their career. But the ACMs have a built in reality meter—the fans—who this year will again vote for Entertainer and for the first time also choose a Top New Artist.
So what is the case for and against fan voting? Years ago, there was no practical way to reach and tabulate votes from millions of fans in a short time. Today’s new media encourages a one-on-one relationship which makes voting easy and has the added benefit of possibly continuing the dialog with each fan during the year. Awards shows and networks are also dedicated to winning the ratings wars, so it makes sense to find out directly from the fans who they consider entertaining and will tune in to watch. It also seems reasonable to assert that regardless of the purity of the process or safeguards taken, industry voters will stretch to affirm their vested interests.
To balance these issues, ACM has chosen to rely on industry experts to do the heavy lifting and choose the final nominees. “We use our official membership to vette the new talents and ultimately put forth what we the industry feel are the five best nominees in each category,” says ACM Executive Director Bob Romeo. “When that process is done correctly, then one could assume that if we ask the fans to weigh in at that point we would be happy regardless of which of the five acts were to win. The process builds on industry wisdom and then gives the fans a chance to engage.”
Romeo sees the fans as a type of fail-safe mechanism. “If the industry makes a mistake and there is some kind of irregularity, then the fans will ultimately validate what the best choice should be. When it’s said and done, I don’t think you can bullshit the fans. If someone gets nominated for Entertainer that perhaps isn’t ready, then with all due respect, the fans won’t vote them in.”
After successfully experimenting with fan voting for its Entertainer category last year, this year ACM will introduce three fan-voted New Artist categories—Top New Male, Female and Vocal Duo/Group. A winner from each category will then be entered into the Top New Artist race, again voted upon by the fans.
Unfortunately, while plans were being set for these New Artist honors, an issue arose over the album category. Part of the ACM Best Album criteria required a nominee to have sold over 300,000 units. This year that meant cutting the list of final noms severely. “We were focused on the newcomer awards and album criteria became an oversight,” explains Romeo. “Our board voted to drop the 300,000 sales requirement for this year. We have a mechanism set up for industry to redo the balloting process so we will have our final five in time for the final ballots.”
Is fan voting the future? “I believe my board would be open to additional fan voting ideas,” says Romeo. “But one step at a time. We’re going to validate it again this year, plus open up the Entertainer vote to text voting. So Entertainer ballots will be cast via online and text. If it goes as well as it did last year and we engage even more people—they are telling me that adding text could engage multiple millions more—I’m sure our board will be interested to see those numbers. If it was only up to me I’d be pushing to let the membership shape the final ballot and then have the fans weigh in on every category. You can say what you want about last year, but it was an exciting race. All five of the Entertainer noms knew the outcome wasn’t in the hands of any politics, it was controlled by the fans. When it was all done, the fans validated Kenny Chesney.”
Last year’s ACM show, with fan voting, drew 11.7 million viewers, an increase of 26% from the previous year. Other Awards shows (and their networks) will surely be watching CBS this April 5, to see if ratcheting up the engagement and interactivity continues to bring glad viewership tidings. If it does, one could bet that knocking sound will be the other networks demanding more of the same.
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I can see benefits to both types of voting. Those in the academy have understanding and insight into parts of the music that most fans don’t have. However, as stated, politics can easily play a role. Therefore, fan voting is very important. I also think members could get caught up in those details and forget what really makes a popular song to regular people. After all, it is the fans that make a song/artist/etc. popular. I think the idea of having the members narrow down the options for each catagory and having the fans make the final decision is the best solution.
I think fan voting has merit. But the system must ensure a one-fan/one-vote controlled tally of the results. Perhaps that can be accomplished with a combination of cell/text and land-line/touch tone response requiring a capture of the phone number.
We at IFCO have long touted the vital role of FANS in this consumer-driven industry. Fans are the single greatest factor in obscurity vs superstar status in an artist’s career.
If fan voting worked the way it was supposed to – one fan, one vote, then it’s a great idea. But it doesn’t; the game became working around the system so that one person can place thousands of votes.
I think CBS tried, but when all someone had to do was make up a fake name and email address (that wasn’t verified), then it became an endurance contest to see who’s fans could log the most votes.
The system failed the artists and the fans.
This award should go to the artist(s) that demonstrate the most effort and talent to entertain, and not a popularity contest. While I agree that fan input is valuable, I think that it is important to recognize that not all fans that vote are country music fans. With more and more artists crossing over into country music, it has become less about the music and entertainment and more about whose facebook and myspace sites get the most hits. I urge you and the other members of the ACM board members to reconsider how this most prestigious award is given in the future.
I completely understand why fan voting is important but this completely ends up being biased for the 20 and under fan base that is computer savy and figured out quickly how to get around the 1 vote/fan deal. Artists that have an older fan base will be left out simply because the older fans do not have the time or know how to continuously vote non stop. So if the goal is to increase the younger viewer to watch the show- great- but think about this- the ads that you run during this show- what consumer group are they targeting? the less than 20 year olds or the older consumer. If you want to keep these awards fair and prestigous you need to rethink. I think this year’s ETOY was a perfect example of the unfairness of this fan based voting.
Voting by fans is not an intelligent way to proceed. Hard core fans of any artist may not have the where-with-all to vote objectively. For them loyally wearing blinders can cause them to lose sight of the fact that an entertainer of the year encompasses a wide variety of talents and abilities. Instead they would waste their votes (or multiple votes) on some mediocre talent who may have propelled themselves into the public conscience via American Idol or some other teen luring format. This award has just about been reduced to being similar to Employee Of The Month at the local fast food eatery. Why not place the award in a cereal box and hand out multiple boxes and the one who gets the prize wins?
I think the industry should be the only one’s voting the ACM’s and the fans should stick to the CMT Awards. Fan voting stirs up way too many unnecessary negative feelings, more so then the disappointment of our favorite artist going home empty handed, especially when the tallies are kept secret. I understand both sides however from a fan’s viewpoint, I think its necessary to see what/how the industry views the artists and would also like to see how the artists peers votes. I would also like to mention the awful and down right pathetic antics some artists have gone through in buying votes. This year, it was TM’s antics. Not fair to other artists and shows favoritism. This is as wrong as wrong can be!!!
Fan voting has taken away the respect of the Entertainer category and turned it into a joke! One thing though, as long as Chesney didn’t get it this year again, I was glad. He’s worn out his welcome. But, I still can’t see that Carrie out entertained Keith Urban or Brad Paisley!
Remember when we used to have a show devoted to the FAN FAV’s? It was put on by Music City News and was the kick off to what we used to call FAN FAIR… I know we’ve had a lot of improvements to our industry in many ways, but sometimes I long for the good old days, which in itself is kind of a joke… I’ve been working in this business for only 15 years! I do think if we don’t start letting SONGWRITERS write more of the songs artists are singing, we’re going to be in big trouble down the road. The best written song on the ACM’s was Carrie Underwood’s cover of I TOLD YOU SO!