The 2025 CMA Awards pulled in 6.04 million viewers on ABC last week. That’s an all-time low.
For some perspective, the show had 16.1 million viewers in 2014…and it hit a low of 6.1 million last year.
That is, until this year’s show came along to set the new low
Most people thought the show itself was solid with some strong performances. It also represented country music in a pretty good way. But the big story was about who wasn’t there. Morgan Wallen skipped the show again and there were a lot more who also didn’t show up for it.
Jelly Roll wasn’t there. There was also no Eric Church, Blake Shelton, Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, and many more.
Do you think the ratings dip was because some of the biggest stars weren’t there? Or are viewers just sick of awards shows? I think it has a little to do with both to be honest. Then there’s the fact that they’ve driven away a lot of traditional country music fans by having rap and pop artists constantly perform at these shows, as if we actually care to listen to that sh*t at an actual country music awards show.
As a country music fan, I didn’t ask for any hip-hop country music infusion of any kind. Twin fiddles and steel guitar is all we need to make country music country again.