I've (belatedly) had time to watch the 53 minute webcast of Bill Werde's replies to Jessica Northey's panel.
I agree with other posters that there were obvious objections - the panel members were sometimes a little difficult to understand, but I felt they were more channeling their own thoughts, rather than directly putting the specific questions that fans had posted. As a public question and answer session (if that was the intention) I found it lacking. It was a shame that Chuck Dauphin barely participated - he would have had specific knowledge (and his short historical survey elsewhere, "What Is Country Music?" which I hadn't seen before, was pretty accurate, in my view.) The new artist featured posed some interesting questions (though on other aspects than the chart debate).
Bill Werde, I felt, was not put under much specific pressure by the panel on the issues - allowing it to be largely a self justifying exercise. His reminiscences showed that he has a background very much in the Pop sector (which was not unexpected - but, again, it was a pity that he didn't call more on Chuck Dauphin, given that he was saying most of the objections were from Country fans). Both there, and on Twitter, as in his Billboard explanatory editorial, I felt he was skating over the issues by trivializing them as fan over-reactions (reinforced by his repetitive jokes about Carrie, Taylor and Scott Borchetta). Partly, no doubt, that is his manner and style of humour - but it also served the pretty obvious purpose of throwing up a smokescreen to cover the stylistic objections in favouring crossovers.
Nevertheless, although those objections made the exercise unsatisfactory - it did bring out what I feel were probably some hard truths that mean the new system is here to stay.
Firstly, I see no reason to doubt that they had discussions with the industry, and that the industry supported the change. I say that because it would make no sense for Billboard to spring something like this as a 'fait accompli', when its reputation and news stories are so closely tied to the wider music industry. Leave aside the likes of Rounder, Yep Roc, New West and Sugar Hill (who generally aren't in these charts anyway) - the major labels have been pushing Pop-friendly music and crossovers for a long time, and probably are happy with this general approach. A genuine storm from Nashville might have killed it - but that didn't happen (and almost certainly won't)
Secondly, Werde was able to rattle off the names on the new chart - they were a broad reflection of what radio would expect. The main dispute is largely focused on the top three places - and that almost certainly bothers us here more than it bothers most others. Billboard have admitted elsewhere that "deep genre" artists will likely slip down a few places - but Mainstream radio has, in general, little love for "deep genre" artists anyway - and tends to get much more excited about big name crossovers. Again, Billboard is likely to escape much objection.
Thirdly, there's the vexed question of the obvious Pop nature of the 'Never Ever' song (admitted to be Pop by Borchetta himself - hardly deniable, when it had Pop writers and producers and a primary Pop mix). But here, Billboard have no realistic choice but to call it a Country song. The blame for this lies squarely on Mainstream Country Radio - who were so used to the Taylor image that they played it anyway. The fact that it didn't rise above 13 is not a killer (if so, no song that didn't reach at least 12 could count.) Billboard can reject a future Taylor song that hasn't reached Country radio (and I think they have rejected one of the new ones) - but they certainly can't reject one that Country radio have already played for a few weeks and put into their own airplay top twenty - the Country call has already been made for them (even if it did make radio look more than a little bedazzled)
Fourthly, there's Werde's claim that he's received only a relatively small total number of complaints from among the legions of Country Music fans. Obviously, I've no way of knowing whether this is true - but the fact that only 600 people signed the petition (despite Herculean efforts by Jason, and the take-up by at least two well read blogs) suggest that his claim may not be too far off. He also says that most of the complaints can be traced back to people who also post a lot about Carrie. Again, this is uncheckable - but it does seem plausible, given the apparent general silence from most Country fan bases, and the special focus on the top places in the latest chart.
In summary, I'd like to say that I greatly appreciate the efforts of Jason, Triggerman and many individual fans in fighting this battle - they couldn't have done more, and it's in no way their fault that it didn't appear to lead to a wider reaction.
For my part, I'm not satisfied with Werde's reasoning about Pop airplay, nor with his attempts to shrug off objections. I don't think the question of Bilboard actively encouraging more crossovers has even been addressed at all. But, without an industry reaction, Billboard's "brand" is presumably intact.
