CMT Awards are coming back to Austin next April for another round of awards and good times

The Country Music Television Awards will be back in Austin for 2024, producers of the awards show announced on Thursday.

The CMTs brought country music stars like Shania Twain, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban and dozens more to Austin last spring and we had a blast. A week of events led up to the big show and gave Austinites plenty of opportunities to get their country fix.

The CMTs were in Austin for the first time in April after being in Nashville for years. It was not clear immediately after the 2023 show whether the CMTs would return to Austin or whether it was one and done.

But now we know — the show will be back at the Moody Center on April 7.

Moody Center general manager Jeff Nickler told the Statesman after last year's show that his team’s “top priority is to ensure that CBS and CMT decide to return to Austin,” and he also acknowledged that the success of the event could lure other large ceremonies to the Moody Center.

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“I believe hosting this show gives us the opportunity now to go chase even bigger, even more prestigious events,” he said in April 2023.

Moody Center was constructed with large-scale, high-production events like the CMT Music Awards in mind. Nickler believes the addition of a world-class arena puts Austin “on an even playing field with other major cities,” he said.

The CMT Music Awards' first show in Austin saw record viewership, according to Variety.

The trade publication cited Paramount Global, who reported 5.43 million viewers watched the show on CBS and Paramount+. That's a 5% increase in viewership from 5.16 million viewers over last year's broadcast. Paramount also announced the show was the most-streamed program for their platform on that Sunday night.

"We couldn’t be more excited to bring the CMT Music Awards on CBS back to Austin in 2024," executive producers Margaret Comeaux, John Hamlin and Leslie Fram said in an emailed statement. "From the electrifying, sold-out Moody Center crowd to fans packing the streets for our outdoor Congress stage, and Bevo himself walking the Red Carpet, our Texas-sized welcome proved to be one of our biggest and most unforgettable shows yet."

American-Statesman music writer Deborah Sengupta Stith contributed to this report.