Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticWhen Leslie Fram, formerly a top programmer and morning cohost in radio’s alternative format, made the jump from FM to television by coming aboard the CMT network as the VP in charge of music in 2011, she liked almost everything she had to learn as a quick study in country music.
That ranged from the greater collegiality of country’s artist community to how much earlier the music showcases started in Nashville than they had in New York.
She didn’t even have that much reason to miss rock ‘n’ roll, when Keith Urban, Brad Paisley and Eric Church were putting on what basically amounted to rock shows.There was just one thing she couldn’t get used to — and still hasn’t: Where were the women, in a genre that once had Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Shania Twain and the Dixie Chicks as its figureheads and superstars?
In a new episode of Variety‘s Strictly Business podcast, Fram talks about the diversity programs she’s co-founded over the last eight years, some of them within CMT, some part of the broader Nashville music-industry community.
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