Inside the Plans to Celebrate the CMA Awards at 60: ‘We Have to Meet Fans Where They Are’

If it weren’t for Elvis Presley, there may not have been a Country Music Association — and, by extension, no 60th anniversary of the CMA Awards to celebrate on Nov.

18.

“In 1958, country radio stations all over the country were starting to turn to rock to follow the popularity of Elvis, and [industry] leaders got together during the DJ conference in Miami and said, ‘How do we keep our business strong?’ And they formed the CMA,” says Sarah Trahern, who has been the CMA’s CEO since 2014.

“The first year there were 20 people on the board and 200 CMA members,” Trahern continues.

“Now we have 8,000 members and a 75-person board.

The tenets of what makes the CMA successful really started then, which was leaders coming together to check their competitive hats at the door for the collective good of the association.

That is something that we still carry forward today.” Trahern John Russell/CMA Related As Final-Round Voting Opens Today for the 2026 CMA Awards, Here Are the Races We’re Watching Amyl and the Sniffers to Headline Golden Hour at Bondi Beach in 2027 A$AP Rocky Announces First Australian and New Zealand Tour in Eight Years Earlier this year, Trahern announced she would be stepping down, and in July, Brittany Schaffer, former dean of the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business at Belmont University, was named as her replacement.

In September, the two began serving together for a transition period that officially ends Dec.

31. (Unofficially, Trahern leaves a little earlier: “My last day is Dec.

10, and my husband and I are on a plane to Spain on Dec.

11,” she says.) But first comes the 60th-anniversary edition of the CMA Awards, which will celebrate a record year for country music, led by Ella Langley, who received nine nominations.

Taylor Swift, who is nominated for single of the year for “I Knew It, I Knew You,” has already announced on social media her intention to return to the show for the first time since 2016.

As CEO, her purview also includes June’s CMA Fest, the charitable CMA Foundation and the overall business of the association.

“One of the things that surprised me the most when I first started is that a lot of folks don’t understand that the CMA is a trade association and we’re a 52-weeks-a-year business,” she says.