How Did Taylor Swift Win Entertainer of the Year?

I couldn’t stop laughing during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speeches last night  after she won Female Vocalist and then Entertainer of the Year at the CMA‘s.

“…I want to thank everybody for not running up on stage during this moment…,” she said as she clung to her first  award of the night.

Maybe it would have been wrong for Kanye to run up on stage again, but it would’ve been completely justifiable if Reba McEntire, or any of the other ladies, would’ve sprinted on stage to steal the trophy back.

If you didn’t know the backstory to Swift’s comment, she was referring to the unfortunate upstaging antics of Kanye West that she had to endure after she won Best Female Video at the MTV VMA’s.

Then after winning EOTY to end the show, Swift thanked fans and huddled with her fellow band mates and performers in a moment of 19-year-old shock and awepreciation, gushing about the huge amounts of support and solidarity they all showed while on tour.

Colleen and I continued to giggle and laugh as the credits rolled and the show wrapped up and Carrie Underwood gave herself an awkward pat on the back.

But then I wondered…

How does the CMA’s pick Entertainer of the Year?  I’d like to know because Swift was up against some pretty stiff and worthy competition.  I feel sorry for those guys because it seemed like the CMA’s felt sorry for Swift and gave her a sympathy win.

But back to my question about the details of picking EOTY.

I know how the ACM awards picks their winner, and how they started including fans in the process for the first time.

But what about the CMA’s? 

It’s a huge honor to win the CMA Entertainer of the Year award and the list of past winners is filled with great performers.

The only thing I’ve been able to find so far is that according to CMT.com (an MTV network) the “CMA award winners are determined by votes cast by professional members of the Country Music Association and then fan votes are factored in.” 

Sure, I knew that much.

But I wanted more info.

But when I looked around the interwebs, I couldn’t find any quick answers about the specific criteria, so I turn to YOU to help me figure this one out.

What’s the criteria?   Concert sales?  Attendance?  Is there a performance ranking or rating system that the CMA uses to determine the winner?

Music award shows are silly

In the end, music award shows always make my head spin in silly confusion because each show is run by a different segment of the  music industry and each camp seems to take sides each year for different reasons and in the process they put different values on different aspects of musical performance.

That said, it’s really no surprise that the CMA pinnacle award is Entertainer of the Year as opposed to the other award shows where the ultimate is Album of the Year.

Let’s talk this one over.

Drop a comment with any info or links as to where I can find more info on how the CMA’s pick Entertainer of the Year.