CMT Music Awards:
The CMT Music Awards is a fan-voted awards show for country music videos and television performances. The awards ceremony is held every April in Nashville, Tennessee and broadcast live on CMT. Voting takes place on CMT's website, CMT.com.
Started: 2002
The show was first established in 2002 as the CMT Flameworthy Video Music Awards, a name coined by program development vice president Kaye Zusmann.
CMA Awards
The Country Music Association Awards, also known as the CMA Awards, or the CMAs and not to be confused with the ACM Awards, are voted on by business members of the Country Music Association. The first CMA awards were presented at an untelevised ceremony in Nashville's Municipal Auditorium in 1967. (The Entertainer of the Year award that night went to Eddy Arnold.) The second annual CMA awards were presented in October 1968; NBC broadcast the presentation a few weeks later). Beginning in 1969, the awards were televised live, usually during October or November of each year. They continued to be broadcast on NBC until switching to CBS in 1972, where they remained until 2005. Starting in November 2006, the Annual CMA Awards are televised on ABC. The CMA Awards ceremonies have almost always taken place at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry (initially at the Ryman Auditorium, and from 1974 on, at the Opry's new location in Opryland), with four exceptions: The 1967 awards were presented at Nashville's Municipal Auditorium, the 2005 ceremonies took place in New York at Madison Square Garden and the 2007 and 2008 awards were presented at the Sommet Center in downtown Nashville.
Annual awards are given in the following twelve categories: Entertainer, Male Vocalist, Female Vocalist, New Artist (previously known as the Horizon Award until 2008), Vocal Group, Vocal Duo, Single, Album, Song, Music Event, Music Video, and Musician.
The show featured performances from top country music stars as well as up-and-coming new artists who perform snippets of their hit songs before going to a commercial (the new artist bumpers were discontinued in 2002).
BMI Awards
Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI) is one of two major United States performing rights organization, along with ASCAP. It collects license fees on behalf of songwriters, composers, and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to those members whose works have been performed. BMI affiliates include pop music icons like Eminem and Christina Aguilera as well as composers like William Bolcom and John Williams.
ACM Awards
The Academy of Country Music (ACM) was founded in 1964 in Los Angeles, California as the Country & Western Music Academy. Whereas the Country Music Association founded in 1958 was based in Nashville, the Academy sought to promote country music in the western states. As such, its early membership was largely composed of those country performers based in the west. This is evidenced by the early awards shows being dominated by Bakersfield artists Buck and Bonnie Owens and Merle Haggard. At the first ceremony held in 1966, Buck Owens won for Top Male Vocalist and Bonnie Owens won for Top Female Vocalist. Haggard was named Top New Male Vocalist and Kaye Adams was named Top New Female Vocalist.
CMAA
The Country Music Association of Australia (CMAA) is an association formed in 1992 that promotes and represents the Australian country music industry. As the peak national industry body, its activities include organisation, promotion and staging of the CMAA Country Music Awards of Australia, CMAA Australian College of Country Music, CMAA College Graduation Concert, CMAA Australian Country Music Achiever Awards, CMAA Golden Guitar Winners' Concerts and the CMAA Australian National Bluegrass Championship. Additionally the association is involved in industry research, professional development and promotion.