Plight Of Songwriters Captured In New TV Show ‘Chart Breakers’ [Exclusive]

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Chart Breakers judges Filmore, Janine Ebach and Wyatt Durrette

The journey of becoming a professional songwriter is being explored on the new television show Chart Breakers, which will film its finale episode on Wednesday (Nov. 29) at the Listening Room Cafe in Nashville.

Executive produced by Jason Sciavicco and singer-songwriter Chris Lane, Chart Breakers speaks to the true-to-life struggles that songwriters deal with when trying to move to Nashville and get a publishing deal. Veteran publisher Janine Ebach, hit songwriter Wyatt Durrette and artist-writer Filmore serve as judges for the competition series.

Behind the scenes of Chart Breakers

A winner will be selected on Wednesday from three finalists. The champion will receive $100,000 and a publishing deal.

“As a veteran Nashville music publisher, I am thrilled to be a part of a Chart Breakers as it helps to tell the story of the songwriter—something that the world needs to know more about. Afterall, it all begins with a song and I’m grateful to get to help find and nurture the next generation of special songwriters,” shares Ebach.

To gather competitors for the series, show organizers traveled around in tour buses and hosted auditions in five different cities, including Nashville, Greenville, Marietta, Pensacola and Statesboro. Each contestant competed for a spot on the bus to take them to the next city, where they would have to battle to stay on the bus against the new songwriters auditioning. After a group of eight songwriters were teased out, they were bussed to a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Behind the scenes of Chart Breakers

Each day in the cabin, the competitors were given different challenges to get them into the headspace for the songwriting they’d have to do later in the day. The winner of each mini challenge would get extra mentor time with an industry professional, such as Dave Kennedy, Levi Loury and Justin Ebach. Contestants would write a song and perform it by the following evening for the judges.

“I’ve never been more excited to produce a series than I am for Chart Breakers,” says Sciavicco. “This is truly a first-of-its-kind show where we are shining the spotlight on the songwriters. The talent on this series blew me away. These are names that people will soon know for a long time to come!”

The songwriters left competing in the finale of Chart Breakers are Tampa, Florida’s Emma Dunne, Grafton, Massachusetts’ Taylor O’Connor and Cincinnati, Ohio’s Nolan Gray. Each songwriter recently spent time in Nashville working on their finale song with the help of Sugarland’s Kristian Bush and songwriter Tyler Reeve. They’ve also recorded scratch vocals in Station West’s studio to get a taste of what it’s like to be a recording artist.

The finale of Chart Breakers will also include a red carpet event at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, and all top nine contestants will perform a song along with judges Filmore and Durrette as well as special guest Lane.

Details on how viewers can watch Chart Breakers will be announced as they are finalized.

LB Cantrell
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