Sony Music Nashville drops Nashville Star 3; Phil Vassar will host with Rimes.

Sony Music Nashville drops Nashville Star 3; Phil Vassar will host with Rimes.
Among the changes for Nashville Star 3 will be a new record company awarding the winner a recording contract. “After two seasons, Sony Music Nashville declined to participate in the third season of Nashville Star, which begins airing March 1 on the USA Network,” according to the Nashville City Paper. It is being replaced, though: “Universal South, a boutique label in Nashville, will now award the winner a record contract.” Sony’s Tracy Gershon, once a judge on the show, says that “We just said we’re so excited about the success we’ve had (on Nashville Star), and really it was just a matter of time and resources. … we just weighed it and said we’ll take a year off. We may come back to it, but it was time to pass the baton.” But she also identifies a problem with the contest: “The audience chooses, and the audience didn’t come to the party. We didn’t see the love [for Cotter] that we saw on Buddy.” The paper elaborates, noting that the “first winner, Buddy Jewell, has sold 524,000 copies of his self-titled album since it came out on Sony in July 2003, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The second season winner, Brad Cotter, has sold 128,000 units of his album ‘Patient Man,’ since Sony debuted it last July.
+ also: singer/songwriter Phil Vassar will join LeAnn Rimes as host for the new season.

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