The 2021 Academy of Country Music Awards (which aired Sunday, April 18 on CBS) housed performances of more than 25 songs (heard in full or as part of medleys) from stars ranging from show co-host Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood to Miranda Lambert and Chris Stapleton.
In terms of streaming activity, some of the performed songs with the strongest gains following the show include Stapleton’s “Maggie’s Song,” Ashley McBryde’s “Martha Divine,” Kelsea Ballerini’s “Half of My Hometown,” Brothers Osborne’s “I’m Not for Everyone,” Ryan Hurd and Maren Morris’ “Chasing After You,” Jimmie Allen and Brad Paisley’s “Freedom Was a Highway” and Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert and Jon Randall’s “In His Arms.”
Looking only at streams of the performed songs on the day of the show (April 18) and the two days afterwards (April 19-20), there were 10 songs (not counting new releases*) that were streamed at least 50,000 times with a gain of at least 10% (compared to the three days leading up to the show, April 15-17). They are:
Artist, Title – April 18-20 Streams – % Gain (April 15-17 Streams)
Keith Urban, “Tumbleweed” – 72,000 – 64% (44,000)
Carrie Underwood, “The Old Rugged Cross” – 65,000 – 54% (42,000)
Carrie Underwood, “Amazing Grace” – 69,000 – 51% (46,000)
Ashley McBryde, “Martha Divine” – 162,000 – 21% (134,000)
Chris Stapleton, “Maggie’s Song” – 335,000 – 17% (286,000)
Ryan Hurd and Maren Morris, “Chasing After You” – 1.76 million – 15% (1.53 million)
Jimmie Allen and Brad Paisley, “Freedom Was a Highway” – 286,000 – 14% (250,000)
Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert and Jon Randall, “In His Arms” – 157,000 – 14% (137,000)
Kelsea Ballerini, “Half of My Hometown” – 650,000 – 14% (572,000)
Brothers Osborne, “I’m Not for Everyone” – 359,000 – 13% (317,000)
Looking at the bigger picture, here’s how many times the combined songs performed on the ACMs were streamed in the U.S. in the days leading up to the show (April 15-17), the day of the show (April 18), and the two days after the show (April 19-20), according to MRC Data.
Date – On-Demand U.S. Streams (Audio & Video Combined) of Songs Performed on ACMs*
Thursday, April 15 – 7.09 million
Friday, April 16 – 7.76 million
Saturday, April 17 – 7.67 million
Sunday, April 18 – 7.13 million (Day of ACMs)
Monday, April 19 – 7.83 million
Tuesday, April 20 – 7.80 million
* Not including new songs released in the days leading up to the ACMs (Thomas Rhett’s “Country Again,” Eric Church’s “Bunch of Nothing” and Alan Jackson’s “You’ll Always Be My Baby”), as their initial streaming figures distort comparisons.
Note that Sundays, in general, tend to be a low volume day for streaming activity for all songs. So, the Sunday-to-Monday gain is bit distorted. (The same Sunday dip was seen in March during Grammy Awards weekend, when the Grammys were also broadcast on a Sunday.)
Streams of the ACM tunes grew 9.8% on Monday, April 19 versus Sunday, April 18 (7.83 million vs. 7.13 million). Further, the combined streams of Sunday-Tuesday (April 18-20) grew 1.1% over their sum on Thursday-Saturday (April 15-17) (22.76 million vs. 22.52 million).
The ACM Awards are produced by Dick Clark Productions, which is owned by MRC. MRC and Penske Media are co-parent companies of Billboard.
