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Show - ' ' J ,0 r ' V LI ' ' I Rttgers big lasor Suspicion surfaces over country music awards 5v by Jeff Wilson United Press International Writer HOLLYWOOD When Kenny Rogers turned up the big loser at last months Academy of Country Music Awards presentations, suspicions were raised about the academys voting procedures. Artists on CBS Records swept all nine major categories during the May 1 NBC telecast, led by Larry Gatlins awards for top male vocalist, single of the year and album of the year. favorite Rogers, nominated in five categories alongside Gatlin, didnt win anything. Rogers records for United Artists records. Pre-sho- SEVERAL DAYS AFTER the show a Nashville newspaper cried foul and charged that CBS paid for the academy memberships of up to 350 employees, about 10 times the average claimed by other major record labels. The Tennessean quoted two senior CBS records executives, Rick Blackburn and Roy Wunsch, as acknowledging that the company paid for more than 300 academy memberships, encouraged bloc voting and sometimes filled out the ballots for employees with their permission. Carson Schreiber, former academy vice president and now West Coast manager of country music promotion for RCA, called it an unfair awards show. AT $20 A MEMBERSHIP, we have to put in 300 members to equal CBS, Schreiber said. If we do that, everybody else has to do it. It is an unfair awards show because the public, they dont know. They just see these artists win these awards. crossword puzzle Actually, youre buying votes. According to the academys rules, its very honest, but one company bought all the votes. Mark Levinson, vice president of United Artists business affairs, said the label originally decided to keep a low profile in the voting controversy. WE DIDNT WANT to be involved in someone saying this is sour grapes because we have an artist (Rogers) who didnt win, Levinson said. "But were our position and saying maybe there was some deception played. If the reports are true, then we feel sorry for the viewers at home who thought they were watching a legitimate show. We feel sorry for the nominees who thought they were in a legitimate contest. We feel sorry for the winners. The awards show swept the ratings giving NBC a huge win over CBS and ABC on the first night of the May sweeps, or audience measurement periods. I AM STILL firmly convinced that if we had not gotten good numbers with 80 million viewers we would not have heard any of this, academy president William Boyd said of the controversy. The show was on May 1, the ratings came out on the 6th, and the story in the Tennessean appeared on the 7th, Boyd said. He said that this paper in Nashville fired it up. Boyd said charges in the Tennessean story are unfounded and that the story has had little effect as far as the academy is concerned. Answer on Page 11-- Popular country singer Kenny Rogers was shut out of this years Academy of Country Music Awards. Suspicions have been raised about the academys voting procedures. "WE PROBABLY GOT about 12 phone calls in all, he said. Our concern is with country music and I stand behind the integrity of the academy. To this date, six weeks after the academy show, I have not received a single complaint from any record company. Boyd conceded that last week the academy moved to limit the number of members who may vote as representatives of a company, but he emphasized that the changes were "not in response to charges made about this years show, but the board of directors felt something could happen down the line. We built in some safeguards. 8 The Salt Lake June 1980 Newst-an- ' Ente-pns- e Assn 29, 1980 82 Looks 83 Opposite 85 Satirist Aretino 88 Lounge about 90 Place (irmly 93 Rural byway 94 heart (is kind) 2 wds. 95 Memo abbr 96 Calendar abbr 97 Skywatcher's sighting 98 Transgress 99 & 37 Down BSA member 101 102 103 104 Unrefined Park or Mad Venturi, e g Before o'es II |
