Academy of Country Music CEO Damon Whiteside on the Awards Returning to Las Vegas and Leaving on a High Note

The Academy of Country Music Awards may have celebrated its 60th anniversary last year, but one remnant from the birthday remains: the May 17 show will continue in its supersized length. For 2025, the ceremony, which streams on Prime Video, grew from two hours to two hours and 30 minutes, and it will now remain at the expanded time.

“I pushed for it simply because we want to have room for more performances and more artists,” ACM CEO Damon Whiteside says. “It’s good to have the extra time. But Prime Video really made the decision that they wanted to continue with that length because they felt that the fans loved it. It still feels much shorter than the traditional broadcast award show that’s three hours, and we’re so light on our commercial load that’s it’s mostly wall-to-wall music.”

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This year, Megan Moroney leads all nominees with nine nominations, followed by Miranda Lambert with eight and then Ella Langley and Lainey Wilson with seven each. Langley led all nominees last year with eight. “You look across the board at all nominees, it’s definitely heavily leaning toward a lot of relatively newer acts in a lot of ways, which is awesome to see,” Whiteside says. “There’s just a whole new, exciting crop of artists that are being recognized by the ACMs. From a voter perspective, we tend to be the first to recognize an artist in their career. It’s cool because you hear from a lot of legends that an ACM was their first award.”

Rounding out the leading nominees are Chris Stapleton with six, the most of any male artist; followed by Zach Top with five and Cody Johnson and Riley Green, each with four.

This year there is no new duo or group category because there were not enough qualified candidates submitted. “An artist or an act needs to submit to be considered for a category, so there’s always some cases where, especially in the new categories, that they choose not to submit in a given year because they may want to wait until they have even more going on because you can only be nominated twice in the category,” Whiteside says. “We expect it will be back next year.” To qualify, an artist must have had a charting song in the year of eligibility, which, for the current awards, was Jan. 1, 2025, to Dec. 31, 2025. There must be at least three qualified nominees.

Four awards have already been announced: Songwriter of the year (Jessie Jo Dillon), new male artist of the year (Tucker Wetmore), new female artist of the year (Avery Anna) and visual media of the year (“Cuckoo,” Stephen Wilson, Jr.; producer/director: Tim Cofield).

The ACM Awards move back to Las Vegas for the first time since 2022, and, more specifically, back to the city’s MGM Grand Garden Arena for the first time since 2019. “We’ve been looking at opportunities since I’ve been here to go back to Vegas,” he says, though adds that the past three years holding the show at The Star in Frisco, Texas, home of the Dallas Cowboys’ practice facility, was “a great opportunity to go and spend three years with them. We loved that experience.”

However, given the show’s long history with Las Vegas and the town’s party atmosphere, he adds “it just feels like the place for a show like this and it does kind of tie back a little bit to our West Coast roots.” The Academy started in Los Angeles in 1964 as the Country & Western Music Academy. “I’ve been hearing a lot of feedback from artists and the industry,” Whiteside continues. “They’re just super excited. It’s like, ‘Oh, we can’t wait to go back to Vegas again. We can’t wait to be at the MGM again.’ I think it’s fun for the artists to be able to hang out.”

The ACM Awards will be preceded by two affiliated events in Las Vegas: On May 15, ACM Lifting Lives Country on the Green: Riley Green & Friends will take place at Topgolf Las Vegas and serve as a fundraiser for the ACM’s philanthropic arm. On May 16, ACM Next Wave: Country’s Beach Bash will highlight developing acts including Wetmore, Dasha, Flatland Cavalry and Ashley Cooke performing poolside at the Mandalay Bay Beach.

The 61st ACM Awards will be Whiteside’s last as CEO. Whiteside, who took over the organization in January 2020, announced his resignation March 3, effective June 30. “It hasn’t fully sunk in yet, honestly, but I would say it’s bittersweet for sure,” he says of his swan song. “I’m so focused, though, on the show being great that I really haven’t thought much beyond that. After the show is over, it’s going to hit me. I think we’re among the best music shows out there. And I’m just so proud of that that I think that’s what I’m going to hold onto and just knowing that I’m leaving on a high note because it’s going to be a fantastic show.”

The ACM Awards are produced by Dick Clark Productions, which is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Eldridge Industries and Billboard parent company Penske Media.