At Least They’re Not Zooming

There is Zoom fatigue already. It was cool for a little while, but not everyone loves it. It’s cold and sterile and impossible to find warmth, although it is efficient.

Music Row folks would love to stop the new artist radio tours and go all Zoom. And in the short term, that will happen. With the re-advent of network syndicated radio shows all over the Country format, many stations are like ghost towns, with not enough live employees for a new singer to even say hello to! The radio tour costs as much as a million dollars an artist if you did a big tour for a group. That’s lots of meals, airline tickets, rental cars, etc. It helped launch many, many artists, and relationships were established that remain.

Zoom can be very cool, getting people in a meeting who could have never attended. Yes, there are plenty of pluses, but a growing number of negatives. It is not a cure all for saying money. Short term gain, long term pain. If local relationships still matter (and often they don’t), face-to-face does make a difference.

I can make a safe bet the radio-like showcase won’t go away for consultants, multi-station morning shows and the like. Just not the distant station where PDs put the new act in a coffee room, dragged in the secretary because everyone was busy and made the scared baby artist wait in the outer office for too long. They created great memories and more than a few nightmares. Zoom and do like me this week: get the gigabyte connection. Got to have fast, reliable internet to live in 2020 and beyond.

Oh, yeah, the CMA nominations: Justin Bieber is up for three! That had to make ABC happy. It should be the Luke Combs and Miranda Lambert show this year. Both had a great year. The big question is how are the CMAs and ACMs going to hold an audience for three hours with no live audience energy?

MTV did about as good as anyone can under the current restrictions with its recent awards show. Indy and baseball felt so dead. Everything is about as exciting these days as a “Today” show in-studio performance. Hardly prime time worthy. Live audiences bring energy. Without them: cold soup.

2020 is so crazy. The ACMs are in Nashville. That’s a first. That organization was created to not be in Nashville. Now everyone is back at headquarters. How will the

CMAs NOT look like the ACMs? You know that’s a challenge. Can these shows with guitars in the round and mood pieces hold attention of non-country fans for three hours? It took all hands on deck and big performances to get great ratings in the past. This year is an intimidating challenge.