Kelsea Ballerini and actor Anthony Mackie are set to co-host the 2022 CMT Music Awards on April 11. This will be the show’s first airing on CBS, where it is effectively replacing the ACM Awards, which aired on CBS from 1998 to 2021. This year’s ACM Awards streamed on Prime Video on Monday March 7.
Ballerini co-hosted last year’s CMT Music Awards with Kane Brown. This is Mackie’s first time as host or co-host, though he presented perennial CMT favorite Carrie Underwood with the video of the year award for “Hallelujah” (with John Legend) at the 2021 show.
The 2021 show was held at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on June 9. This year’s three-hour show will be held at Nashville Municipal Auditorium and in various locations around Music City.
Nominations for the 2022 CMT Music Awards, which bills itself as “country music’s only entirely fan-voted awards show,” are set to be announced on March 16.
Ballerini, 28, won a CMT Music Award last year for “The Other Girl,” a collab with Halsey. Ballerini went on to win two CMA Awards in November – musical event of the year and video of the year for “Half of My Hometown,” a collab with Kenny Chesney.
Mackie, 43, has appeared in such films as The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker. He’s the first actor to host or co-host the CMT Music Awards since Nashville star Charles Esten five years ago.
CMT and CBS are both in the ViacomCBS family. The CMT Music Awards were originally slated to air Sunday, April 3, but the Grammys, a CBS stalwart since 1973, moved into that slot after the pandemic forced a delay from their original Jan. 31 airdate. The Grammys’ move forced the CMT Music Awards to find a new date. On Feb. 1, they announced that they would push the show back eight days.
At that time, Jack Sussman, CBS’ executive vice president, specials, music, live events & alternative programming, said in a statement: “The CMT brand is preeminent in the world of country music, and we are thrilled that their team was able to coordinate a new date to bring this marquee event for television to CBS and maximize the power of the ViacomCBS universe behind it.”
The 2022 CMT Music Awards is executive produced by Margaret Comeaux (CMT), John Hamlin (Switched On Entertainment), Leslie Fram (CMT) and Jason Owen (Sandbox Entertainment). Patrizia DiMaria (Ladypants Productions) is co-executive producer. Jackie Barba and Heather D. Graffagnino are executives in charge of production. Shanna Strassberg and Taryn Hurd are talent producers.
The show will also be available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+.
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