Honorees Kelsea Ballerini, Shania Twain and Carrie Underwood take photos backstage during CMT Artists of the Year 2016 on October 19, 2016 in Nashville, Tennessee. Photo: Rick Diamond/Getty Images for CMT
During last night’s (Oct. 19) CMT Artists of the Year event, held at Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center, popular magazine Variety hosted the pre-party, where VP/Executive Editor Steven Gaydos noted the publication’s current issue has doubles coverage of Nashville’s entertainment industry, attributing prior coverage during the Nashville Film Festival in the spring.
“Congratulations to the CMT honorees tonight,” said Gaydos. “[Nashville is] an entertainment capitol, and that’s what I’m trying to communicate to the folks back in Hollywood. The people on our Music City Leaders Report really speak volumes to this idea of Nashville as a media center, culture center, and center of country music. CMT helps make it possible for us to create this coverage—we’ve doubled-down at Variety on our annual issue looking at the leaders in Nashville. This week’s Variety tells you some stuff about CMT, the great artists tonight, the entire Music City Leaders Report, and profiles of great artists like Curly Putman and Bill Anderson.”
The current issue features several of the industry’s top voices of influence in its Music City Leaders Report, including:
Nashville mayor Megan Barry
BMLG’s Scott Borchetta
Commissioner Randy Boyd
CAA’s Scott Clayton, Marc Dennis, Rod Essig, John Huie, and Darin Murphy
Red Light Management’s Coran Capshaw
Producer Dave Cobb
Nashville Film Festival’s Ted Crockett
UMG Nashville’s Mike Dungan
Loeb & Loeb’s Tiffany Dunn
KP Entertainment’s Kerri Edwards
Grand Ole Opry’s Pete Fisher
AEG Live’s Ali Harnell
Nashville showrunner Marshall Herskovitz
Thirty Tigers’ David Macias
Songwriter/Producer Shane McAnally
Blue Bird Cafe’s Erika Nichols
Paradigm’s Jonathan Levine
CMT’s Brian Philips
Recording Academy Nashville Chapter’s Shannon Sanders
Sirius XM’s J.R. Schumann
TriStar Sports & Entertainment Group’s Lou Taylor
Musician/entertainer Justin Timberlake
CMA’s Sarah Trahern
UTA’s Nick Meinema, Curt Motley and Lance Roberts
WME’s Rob Beckham and Greg Oswald
About the Author
Jessica Nicholson serves as the Managing Editor for MusicRow magazine. Her previous music journalism experience includes work with Country Weekly magazine and Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) magazine. She holds a BBA degree in Music Business and Marketing from Belmont University. She welcomes your feedback at jnicholson@musicrow.com.View Author Profile
