In light of the controversy surrounding Morgan Wallen and his use of a racial slur, we asked Australia's country radio about his airplay.
In the aftermath of a video surfacing showing Morgan Wallen using a racial slur on February 2nd, many have been quick to condemn the country music artist's actions. The latest in a string of controversies involving the once-rising, now-disgraced star, the video was published by TMZ and was met with swift condemnation from the country music industry as a whole.
While the video was published alongside a written statement from Wallen in which he apologised and pledged to "do better," and Morgan Wallen has since issued a second apology, the artist still remains suspended from his record label, ineligible for awards, and dropped from prominent playlists and radio stations.
However, as fans rallied to show their support for Wallen in the wake of the controversy and continued to buy his records resulting in sales skyrocketing and the artist remaining on top of the Billboard all genre charts for the fourth week in a row, some radio stations have quietly re-added the artist to their playlists.
According to Digital Music News, some country radio stations in the USA reversed their decision to remove him from their playlists out of fear of losing core listeners. In light of this, we at Countrytown reached out to Kix Country, iHeart Radio Australia, ABC Country and Triple M Country to see if they had made any decisions regarding airplay of Morgan Wallen's music.
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Each station's music director was asked if they or their station had any public thoughts on the issue, if their station has made any changes to airplay of Wallen's music, if a public statement had been made by the stations about the controversy, and if the stations had any plans to change Wallen's airplay in the future.
Kix Country's Justin Thomson said that while the station did put Wallen's music on hold when the news broke, the country artist's music would return to the station "in the not too distant future."
iHeart Radio Australia's Brett "Nozz" Nossiter advised that the Australian branch of the station is in line with the response from iHeart Radio USA, which removed the artist from their playlists immediately after the news broke. They currently have no plans to change this response, but will continue to monitor the story as it develops.
ABC Country and Triple M Country did not respond in time for publishing.
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