For the second year, the annual CMT Music Awards were broadcast on CBS. The show was also available to stream live on Paramount+. Kelsea Ballerini and Kane Brown were the co-hosts.
The ceremony was held on April 2, and started at 8/7c. Some of the artists who performed throughout the night included Carrie Underwood, Cody Johnson, Carly Pearce, Jelly Roll, Kelsea Ballerini, and Blake Shelton.
There were tons of collaborations too. Alanis Morissette joined several female country artists to sing in recognition of CMT’s Next Women of Country program. Carly Pearce performed No Doubt’s “Just a Girl” with Gwen Stefani. Kane Brown and his wife, Katelyn, delivered their first awards show performance of their hit duet, “Thank God.”
This year’s ceremony ended with a superstar tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd. Artists such as Cody Johnson, Wynonna Judd, LeAnn Rimes, and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons participated in the tribute. It included two of Skynyrd’s biggest hits, “Simple Man” and “Sweet Home Alabama.”
As for the awards themselves, some of the biggest winners were Lainey Wilson, Jelly Roll, and Cody Johnson. Kane and Katelyn Brown’s video for “Thank God” won Video of the Year.
Shania Twain was also honored during the ceremony as the third recipient of CMT’s Equal Play Award.
CBS Entertainment released a report about the ceremony’s viewership numbers.
According to the report, this year’s CMT Music Awards drew in 5.43 million viewers. The ratings were up 5% in comparison to last year’s broadcast.
Additionally, the report states the CMT Music Awards were the most-streamed program of the night on Paramount+. Streaming numbers were up 16% in comparison to last year.
CBS shared the following additional information about the CMT Music Awards‘ performance:
- The CMT Music Awards were the second most-watched awards show in the last year on CBS and Paramount+. Only the Grammys outperformed in terms of viewership.
- The CMT Music Awards generated 2.6 billion potential social impressions, compared to last year’s 2.5 billion. As CBS states, “Potential Impressions are the estimated number of people who might have viewed posts related to this topic. NetBase calculates potential impressions based on followers/fans of original posts and followers/fans of engagements.”
- The hashtag “#CMTAwards” was trending in Twitter’s Top 10 in the U.S. on the night of the ceremony.
As of this writing, the official YouTube video of the Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute has the most views, with over 690,000 so far. The second most-viewed performance on YouTube is Jelly Roll’s performance of “Need a Favor.” That video has over 450,000 views so far.
You can watch the Skynyrd tribute in the video at the beginning of this article and Jelly Roll’s performance in the video below. Which performance was your favorite at this year’s CMT Music Awards?