“More than 16 million people tuned in to the Country Music Association’s 2011 awards show on ABC in November–the fourth most watched program of the week. Its success was predictable. Although rock albums outsell country albums by a wide margin, country outranks rock on Billboard‘s weekly “Hot 100″ chart of single record sales and the number of radio stations with all-country formats is roughly twice that of the stations that play rock. Yet the CMA awards no less predictably received scant attention from the mainstream media. Country is rarely written about in major newspapers and magazines and almost never seen or heard on network TV or in Hollywood films. Nor is its place in middlebrow culture other than marginal…”
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
