The Table Ep. 40 - Dr. Jada Watson on Women in Radio

The Table Women Podcast

Dr. Jada Watson returns to The Table Women to chat all about women in radio, including:

• How Jada found her passion for women in radio and later turned that into a career
• The evolution of her path and the history of radio charts
• How radio charts even work!
• Beyoncé, Country Music Radio, and backlash (or not?)
• The power of having data to back up what we experience
• The cost of having access to the facts
• We’re still going backwards for female representation in radio, what’s up?
• Tomato-gate and it’s impact
• History of Country Music and how we ended up here
• There are only ever 3 women “succeeding” at a time - wtf?!
• Barbie, women in pop music, politics, country music - weird connections!
• So how do we fix it?
• Jada’s own experiences with being targeted in retaliation for her work
• Seeing how being armed with information uplifts the next generations
• And more!

Jada’s website and other links:

www.SongData.ca

Jada Watson, “‘Diversi’tea’: Spilling the Data on Inclusive Programming.” Presented at Country Radio Seminar, 1 March 2024.

Jan Diehm and Jada Watson, “They Won’t Play a Lady-O on Country Radio: Examining Back-to-Back Plays by Gender, Race, and Sexual Orientation.” The Pudding, 22 May 2023.

Jada Watson, “Redlining in Country Music 2.0: Representation in the Country Music Industry in 2021 and 2022.” SongData Reports; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 17 March 2023.

NOTES:

Corb Lund: https://www.corblund.com/

Sarah Harmer: https://sarahharmer.com/

Loretta Lynn: https://lorettalynn.com/

Kitty Wells: https://www.kittywells.com/

Mickey Guyton: https://www.mickeyguyton.com/

Maren Morris: https://www.marenmorris.com/

Beyoncé: https://www.beyonce.com/

Beverly Keel chapter in A Boy Named Sue: Gender and Country Music: https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/A/A-Boy-Named-Sue

Lainey Wilson: https://www.laineywilson.com/home?page=1

Women In Music: https://www.womeninmusic.org/get-involved

Tomato-Gate (Keith Hill): https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2015/06/18/tomato-gate-galvanizes-women-country/28936501/

Jingoism: https://www.britannica.com/topic/jingoism

The Chicks: https://thechicks.com/

Robyn Ottolini: https://www.robynottolini.com/

Priscilla Block: https://www.priscillablock.com/

Jada’s Toronto Star Article: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/jason-aldean-s-try-that-is-now-no-1-on-the-charts-that-s-a/article_d88b19c8-5cd3-51b9-af43-fc75f98a5fab.html

Emily Yahr: “Tracy Chapman, Luke Combs and the Complicated Response to ‘Fast Car’.”

Sara Ahmed “Living a Feminist Life”: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv11g9836

We Belmont: https://www.instagram.com/webelmont/

Rissi Palmer: https://rissipalmermusic.com/

Black Opry: https://www.blackopry.com/

Sasha: https://www.iamsacha.com/

Julie Williams: https://www.thisisjuliewilliams.com/about

Roberta Lea: https://www.iamrobertalea.com/

Joy Oladokun: https://www.joyoladokun.com/

Emma White: https://emmawhite.com/

Kelsea Ballerini: https://www.kelseaballerini.com/Cowboys-Cry-Too

Carly Pearce: https://www.carlypearce.com/#/

Allison Russell: https://allisonrussellmusic.com/

Carter Faith: https://www.carterfaith.com/

P.S. We discuss the initial reaction to Beyoncé releasing "Cowboy Carter" including the backlash, or what seemed to be backlash, from Country Music Radio. Sarah and Jada discussed videos online regarding radio stations claiming they won't play the record. We went back and were able to find content on the initial incident discussed, but we're still looking for videos describing other incidents. If you know of any information regarding people/stations being against playing "Cowboy Carter" please reach out and send them our way, we'd love to have them and share them with Jada!