CRS 2025 is in the books. By all accounts, it was three days of learning, networking, and great music. So, in other words, it was business as usual. CRS delivers year after year the best of those three things and more.
As CRB Executive Director RJ Curtis orchestrates the entire event, I wanted to know what he thought of this year’s.
“Well, first of all, I think the week was excellent. We were concerned about Wednesday morning when we were looking at the weather.”
“We started looking at the weather ten days before CRS, watching that, and we were concerned about the different reports about how much snow was going to fall and what effect that would have on people flying from other areas, and certainly local people who are driving in from the surrounding region.”
“But I think two things, the snowfall wasn’t that bad. It was like one to two inches. The city of Nashville has done a better job preparing the roads so that they’re accessible and people can travel on them. And I also think that people that attend CRS don’t want to miss it and would do anything possible to get there.”
And that included a person who was key to a much-anticipated session.
“One specific instance is Carolyn Gilbert, who is co-presenting the research project.”
“She was bound and determined to get here, driving from Cincinnati. She held off a little bit on Wednesday but then made the drive through at the very beginning of it because she’s north of us, some dicey roads, but she made it in time, and just that just speaks to the determination people have to attend the event.”
And as usual, the presentation didn’t disappoint.
“I think the research project itself is something that people are going to really appreciate and learn from, and we will be publishing that tomorrow. We’re going to put a press release out that has the video of the presentation and then a video of all the slides that they shared during the presentation.”
“We’ve been doing that for so long, commissioning a very specific study, and I think people are looking forward to seeing it every year. The room was quite full. A lot of people there were really just on the edge of their seats, and it was really, really well presented and well done.”
“That’ll be available to everyone tomorrow 2/25). We’re sharing that with the whole world. That’s kind of what we do. We don’t make it exclusive to just the people who were there. We want the whole industry to see that because I think there’s some really good news for radio in there.”
And a takeaway for Curtis was that there is good news for Country radio.
“My takeaways are that while there are a lot of platforms that people use to access Country music, radio is still in the game. We still have a major seat at the table. We have some work to do in a couple of areas that are famously powerful radio tools, and that is music discovery, localization, and the power of personalities on the air.”
“And those are things that come shining through, but we are in this game in a serious way, and I think that’s the encouraging news, and that’s some inspiration to radio operators out there to know that we still have a big impact on the way music is presented and an impact for our local community.”
When Curtis and I talked before the seminar, he said he was looking forward to the artist sit-down between Jelly Roll and Eric Church.
“I was pretty excited about what I would see with Eric Church and Jelly Roll sitting down. I had high expectations for that, and those two exceeded by miles and miles all of my expectations.”
“It was an incredible conversation. It was content gold. Just from the moment they sat down until the moment they had to end it because of time constrictions and a hard-out that Eric Church had, it was fantastic.”
“It was that fly-on-the-wall conversation that some of us have had in a dressing room somewhere with two artists who have mutual respect for each other. It was funny. It was insightful. It was meaningful.”
“There were two great sessions on Thursday morning immediately following the research. One was from Honky Tonk to TikTok. That was quite good. The mental health session, which I helped conduct Q&A for, was revealing. Tim Roberts, Michelle Kammerer, and Wyatt Flores were there, and they just bared their souls. It was quite moving, very powerful, and, I think, very helpful.”
“I’m proud that we continue to revisit this issue of mental health and how people can seek resources that are available to them. Now, thanks to CMA with that major financial investment in both financial and human resources, I think it’s an incredible addition that they’re spearheading. Once we get that published, I hope people will watch that and get some help out of it.”
“I think that all of the Digital Music Summit sessions were really well curated and executed. The panelists were great. I’m really proud of how that turned out, and I really give all the credit to Brittany Johnson and her team for dreaming up those topics and presenting them in a fantastic way.”
“They were solid, better than ever, and I’m glad that we dispersed them through the week instead of bundling them all in one day. I think it was good to have some of that content available on Thursday and Friday as well.”
So now, what happens at the CRS offices?
“I think the next step for us is we’re going to get these videos and all the takeaways available to not only attendees but anyone who didn’t attend CRS, but we hope to have all the videos downloaded and published by next Monday, March 3rd so that people can view them. Then, the next step is to assemble an agenda committee, and we hope to have that done by late April or early May. CRS 2026 is later next year. It’s March 18th through the 20th.”
“The planning cycle will reflect that it’s a month later. For example, our agenda committee selection will be a little bit later. Our summer agenda and board meetings will be in July as opposed to June, as they typically are.”
The videos referenced will be available here.
Reach out to RJ Curtis here.
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Jeff Lynn serves as Editor of Barrett Media’s Music Radio coverage. Prior to joining Barrett Media, Jeff spent time programming in Milwaukee, Omaha, Cleveland, Des Moines, and Madison for multiple radio groups, including iHeartMedia, Townsquare Media, NRG Media, and Entercom (now Audacy). He also worked as a Country Format Editor for All Access until the outlet shut down in August 2023.
To get in touch with Jeff by email, reach him at Jeff@BarrettMedia.com.
