City slickers Michael Engleman (left) and James Hitchcock.
CMT has since scored other ratings coups--notably with its surprising pickup from ABC of the Miss America Pageant, which aired in January, and again with this year's CMT Music Awards. Its reach has grown by 24% in three years, to 82 million households, according to Nielsen Media Research. And gross ad revenues should reach $144.8 million this year, estimates Kagan Research LLC, up from $84.9 million in 2003.
More important, CMT has raised its cultural metabolism. Hitchcock and Engleman convinced Limore Shur, creative director at EyeballNYC, a cutting-edge SoHo production company known for creating daring, hip-hop-flavored commercial spots for the likes of Best Buy and Nike, to collaborate on a series of new network- identification spots. "What? Why us?" Shur recalls asking at the time. Now, he says, he is impressed with the depth of CMT's image overhaul. "By embracing the roots of the country-music culture, I think they have allowed all these beautiful parts to show through."
CMT has a ways to go before being ushered into pop culture's pantheon of cool. This is, after all, still the channel where, according to recent program notes, "Hank Williams Jr. takes Joe Nichols to rural Paris, Tennessee, for his first ever turkey hunt."
"But that's okay," Hitchcock muses. "It would freak me out to be at a place like MTV. Where do you take a brand like that?" Hmmm. Maybe a trip to the country would do it some good.
Ryan Underwood, a former Fast Company staff writer, covers the music industry for The Tennessean in Nashville.
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