FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Global Music Awards Introduce Fan-Curated Category to Drive Record Fan Engagement
New “Fan-Voted Breakthrough” trophy lets listeners nominate and crown rising artists, leveraging real-time streaming data and social sentiment
LOS ANGELES, November 19, 2025 – The Global Music Awards (GMA) today announced the addition of a fully fan-curated category—“Fan-Voted Breakthrough”—to its 2026 ceremony, marking the first time a major international awards show places the entire nomination and voting process in the hands of listeners rather than industry committees. The initiative, unveiled during the organization’s annual State of the Industry keynote, will rely on a proprietary algorithm that weighs verified streams, playlist adds, and hashtag momentum across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts to surface 20 emerging acts. Fans will then vote via the GMA mobile app, with the winner revealed live on March 15, 2026.
Industry analysts say the move arrives as traditional award telecasts confront plateauing viewership and fragmented audiences. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ 2025 Global Entertainment & Media Outlook, live-awards-show advertising revenue in North America fell 4.3 % last year while short-form video ad spend surged 27 %. “Awards shows must meet fans inside the ecosystems where music is actually being discovered,” said Julia Cortez, PwC’s U.S. music sector lead. Pre-launch testing by GMA indicates the fan-curated lane could boost second-screen engagement by up to 38 %, based on A/B trials conducted during September’s Latin Music Week.
Recent data from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) supports the strategy: 68 % of 16-24-year-olds surveyed in 25 countries believe “fans should have an equal or greater say than critics” when honoring new artists . GMA organizers say the finding was the tipping point that converted a two-year internal pilot into a permanent fixture. “We can no longer ignore the fact that virality now precedes radio spins,” said GMA Chair-CEO Dana Patel during the keynote. “By hard-coding fan behavior into our process we are future-proofing relevance, not just chasing trends.”
To safeguard integrity, Deloitte will audit the short-listing algorithm and final vote tabulation, while a peer-review panel from Berklee College of Music and the U.K.’s Official Charts Company will verify eligibility criteria such as commercial release date and original content ownership. Patel confirmed that tracks must have fewer than 250 million global streams at the nomination cut-off to ensure the category remains a platform for “true breakouts,” a threshold derived from Spotify’s 2025 “Fresh Finds” benchmark report.
Marketing partners are already leveraging the announcement. PepsiCo will sponsor a TikTok hashtag challenge (MyBreakthrough) that auto-generates a Spotify playlist of user-nominated songs, and Verizon has committed to zero-rating data for in-app voting on its 5G network. Early analytics from TikTok show 1.8 million U.S. videos used the sound tag “MyBreakthrough” within 48 hours of launch, accumulating 4.4 billion loops—figures that outperformed the 2024 Record-of-the-Year hashtag by 31 % in the same window.
The fan-curated category will sit alongside GMA’s 29 existing genre and craft fields, but it carries an equal primetime slot and full acceptance speech, a decision Patel calls “non-negotiable” for credibility. “This isn’t a side-quest trophy; it’s a core pillar of our broadcast,” she emphasized. Nominees will also receive a guaranteed slot on the official 2026 nomination compilation album, distributed by Universal Music Group across 240 territories, ensuring monetization and exposure even for non-winning acts.
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“Engagement is the new currency,” Patel told reporters after the keynote. “If we can convert passive scrollers into active stakeholders, we not only future-proof our brand but also democratize discovery for the next generation of superstars.”
About the Global Music Awards
Founded in 1981, the Global Music Awards celebrate excellence across recorded and live music, honoring achievements in 30 categories spanning pop, rock, hip-hop, Latin, K-pop, and emerging genres. The ceremony is broadcast annually to 174 countries and reaches an average audience of 98 million viewers. GMA is a division of Global Entertainment Group, a privately held media company headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in London, São Paulo, and Seoul.
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