Maybe leaving out your biggest stars wasn’t the right move after all. The 2025 Country Music Association Awards were last week, and credit where it’s due, it was actually one of the better shows we’ve seen in recent memory. Other than an awful collab between BigXthaPlug and Luke Combs, the performances were all pretty good, and the show actually highlighted some up-and-coming artists who were deserving of the attention while also paying tribute to legends like Vince Gill. But unfortunately for the CMA Awards, much of the conversation surrounding the show centered on who WASN’T there instead of those who were at Bridgestone Arena. The biggest name that was notably absent was, of course, Morgan Wallen. He’s the biggest artist in the genre by far, but he’s had a strained relationship with the awards show since being banned back in 2021 and leaving empty-handed in both 2022 and 2023. In 2024, Morgan finally won Entertainer of the Year, and deservedly so after dominating country music for a couple of years at that point, but by then the damage was done: Morgan wasn’t even in attendance to collect the award, and he hasn’t mentioned it in the year since. He did, however, take a not-so-thinly veiled shot at the awards show recently during a surprise appearance with Ella Langley at the Ryman Auditorium, when he told the crowd it “takes a lot more than an awards show” to get him to Broadway in downtown Nashville these days. Morgan wasn’t the only one who wasn’t in attendance either: Jason Aldean and his wife, Brittany, were in Miami during the awards show, with Brittany commenting that they didn’t feel the need to be there since Jason has never gotten much love from the CMA Awards. Jelly Roll was another artist who was noticeably absent from both the show and the nominations, after being nominated for both Entertainer of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year in 2024. He didn’t give a reason for not being there, and he’s been open about his mental health struggles and illness while on a recent tour in Australia so maybe he was just staying home to recover, but nonetheless it felt like a big absence from one of country’s hottest names right now. The list goes on an on: There was no Eric Church, Reba, Carrie Underwood, or even Luke Bryan, who has hosted the show the past few years. And of course there was no Turnpike Troubadours, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Muscadine Bloodline, or countless other artists who draw massive crowds despite not getting any mainstream attention. And whether you’re a fan of their music or not, it’s hard to deny that it hurts not only the credibility of the awards shows but also their ratings when fans can’t tune in to see the biggest artists in the genre. The ratings for the CMA Awards have been slipping the past few years, bottoming out at a new low last year of only 6.1 million viewers after peaking at 16.1 million viewers back in 2014, just over a decade ago. And this year the show once again hit a new low, drawing around 6.04 million viewers on ABC. Now, this was still the most-watched show in the timeslot, so there’s no arguing that the awards aren’t relevant or that they’re not still a massive draw for country fans. And the show was also made available to stream on Hulu the next day, so the dip in viewership could partly be attributed to people waiting until the following day instead of watching live. But it also seems to be a troubling side effect of leaving out country music’s biggest stars. We saw a ton of comments from folks wondering where Morgan Wallen was, and why the biggest name in country music wasn’t performing at the show, much less winning any awards. It seems like country fans are increasingly tuning out, even after the show has seemed to slow down on the gimmicks like pop collabs and random celebrities telling corny jokes that caused a massive decrease in ratings over the last decade. And when fans aren’t able to tune in to see their favorite artists, can you really blame them?The post CMA Awards Hit Another All-Time Ratings Low In 2025 first appeared on Whiskey Riff.