What makes the TMAs different?

In every award process we have researched, we have looked at four things, eligibility requirements, what the award is based on, who decides the nominees and recipients, and whether or not there is a contest factor. 

In the major awards with national recognition, all the award systems require membership in at least one association.  Whether its NARAS, the Screen Actor's Guild, the Country Music Association, or any of a dozen other organizations, we found that membership is required.  Our process is the same in that our recipients are required to be members of the Academy of Texas Music, Inc.

We noticed that many awards were based on popularity or name recognition, and we couldn't find any that were based on the quality of the performance submitted for recognition.  In the Grammy process, those who are allowed to vote are sent a list of names.  They must select from that list of names.  One can only hope that a voter would research every name on the list and vote for the one who they thought delivered the highest quality performance, but more often, we found that voters first scanned the list for names they knew, often overlooking acts they had never heard of.  The TMAs are based on the quality of performance.  The Honoree Board is given access to every bit of information necessary to make an informed decision.  Quite often, the voters have heard of all the nominees, and they are encouraged to research each nominee thoroughly before casting their vote.

In many other processes, we found that popularity, number of link clicks online, or some other subjective form of voting was used.  In one process, we found that there were two individuals who admitted to making all the decisions about who received an award.  Our nominating process includes the screening of every track on every eligible album.  The Nominating Committee takes suggestions from the public, artists, and industry professionals.  Each track is compared with the criteria set for each award and the nominations are offered to the performances that most meet the criteria.

Contests require judges and competition.  With each competition, there must be a level playing field.  Since music is vast and variant, no level playing field exists.  That's why the TMAs are not a contest.  Each performance is compared to criteria and not to another performance.  If an award is to be given based on how many online clicks an artist can generate, then it should be an 'online click generation award' and not a music award.