The BRIT Awards with Mastercard has revealed a full breakdown of its Voting Academy for 2024.
The Voting Academy is responsible for determining the shortlists and the overall winners of categories.
The BRITs has issued a full analysis of the updated Voting Academy across demographics to demonstrate the ongoing representation across gender and ethnicity, as well as, for the first time, age, sexual orientation, disability and neurodiversity.
Voting for the 2024 BRIT Awards opens today (December 8) at 1pm. Nominations are due to be revealed in the New Year ahead of the main ceremony taking place Saturday, March 2, live on ITV1 and ITVX, from The O2 arena.
Music Week recently spoke to BPI CEO Dr jo Twist and chair YolanDa Brown about changes to increase the number of nominees for Artist Of The Year and International Artist Of The Year from five to ten, and the new genre award for R&B.
Since 2017, the Voting Academy has undergone an annual refresh to ensure relevance and diversity across its participants, with an aim of achieving a balanced split of men and women, as well as representation of members who identify outside the gender binary, and approximately a quarter who identify as Black, Asian or ethnic minority background.
The Voting Academy is annually composed of approximately 1,200 individuals drawn from across the music industry and media, including artists, managers, producers, publishers, record labels, retailers and more.
Out of 1,468 invitations, 1,348 have taken up the invitation and been successfully registered to be on the BRITs Voting Academy for 2024.
The Voting Academy breaks down into 14 sectors across the industry:
Artists/Creators (31 = 2.29%)
Affiliates/Trade Associations (22 - 1.63%)
Business Services (122 = 9%)
Concert Promoters/Venues (68 = 5%)
Digital Music Services (39 = 2.89%)
Independent record companies (143 = 10.6%)
Publishers (11 = 0.8%)
Managers (111 = 8.2%)
Major record companies x 3 (276 = 20.5%)
Physical Retailers (18 = 1.3%)
Press & Media - Print, Online, TV, Radio (403 = 29.9%)
Producers (51 = 3.8%)
Publishers (11 = 0.81%)
Social Media (27 = 2%)
Each sector has a team of specialists who help the BRITs constantly maintain and review the list annually. Each year, once this longlist has been refreshed, the BRITs formally invite people across all these sectors to join the Voting Academy and to vote across the categories.
According to the BRITs analysis, 45% of the Voting Academy identify as female/woman, with 42% identifying as male/man, and 1% identifying as non-binary. Some 12% of those registered preferred not to say.
In terms of ethnic diversity, 24% of the Voting Academy identify as Black, Asian, or of ethnic minority background – 11% identify as Black, 4% identify as Asian, 8% identify as being from mixed or multiple ethnic groups, and 1% selected 'other ethnic group'. 60% of the Voting Academy identified as White.
For the first time, the BRITs have analysed the Voting Academy data demographics across age, sexual orientation, disability and neurodiversity. 27% of those registered are aged 25-34, with 29% aged 35-44. 18% are aged 45-54, 8% aged 55-64, with 2% aged 18-24.
According to the analysis, 64% identify as straight/heterosexual, with 4% identifying as bi-sexual, 5% Gay Man, 2% as Queer and 2% as Gay Woman/Lesbian.
Furthermore, 3% of the 2024 Voting Academy consider themselves disabled and 10% identify as neurodiverse.
This data – collected on registration – enables The BRITs to continue to review the Voting Academy membership in order to achieve a representative cross-section of experts drawn from across the music industry.
“With the privilege of voting comes the responsibility of making selections that recognise excellence and achievement in music alongside the rich diversity of talent drawn from all backgrounds that has made such a memorable impact in the past 12 months, and the Voting Academy will be asked to consider their responsibility when they vote via a a short video message with BPI CEO Jo Twist and BPI chair YolanDa Brown,” said a statement.
The Academy, and the voting process, is overseen by Civica Election Services – an independent voting scrutineer, with the voting process and Academy featured on The BRITs’ official website.
YolanDa Brown, OBE DL, BPI chair, said: “We know just how important data has become in properly informing a detailed understanding of our industry and, in turn, our collective ability to address important issues and realise opportunities in the right and most equitable way. “
“When, in 2017, the BRIT Awards first examined the make-up of its industry-wide Voting Academy in the wake of #BRITsSoWhite, it found that just 15% of those who had been voting identified as from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background, though it was equally struck by the shocking stat that women only made up around 30% of its members. Armed with this telling insight, and with the valued support of what has since evolved into our Equity and Justice Advisory Group (EJAG), The BRITs were able to proactively address such a glaring lack of representation, and by the time the next BRITs came round, a broad voting balance had been achieved between men and women, while representation based on ethnicity began to rise steadily also – up to 18%.
"Since that time of fundamental evaluation and change, the Voting Academy is now refreshed annually to ensure diversity and balance of gender. Furthermore, members from Black, Asian, or minority ethnic backgrounds now consistently make up more than a quarter of the Academy. The BRITs continues to listen, learn and evolve, so, for the first time, it has also analysed its Voting Academy data demographics across age, sexual orientation, disability and neurodiversity. This gives us really valuable additional insight and means we can now look to improve representation across more protected characteristics as we look to continually update The BRIT Awards to remain relevant and representative at all times.”
For each awards category, Voting Academy members select from a longlist of eligible entries, based on Official Charts Company criteria. The full list of categories is below.
Artist of the Year
Group of the Year
BRITs Rising Star
Best New Artist
Song of the Year with Mastercard
Mastercard Album of the Year
International Artist of the Year
International Song of the Year
International Group of the Year
Alternative/Rock Act
Pop Act
R&B Act
Dance Act
Hip Hop/Grime/Rap Act
Producer of the Year (honorary award as decided by a separate expert panel)
Songwriter of the Year (honorary award as decided by a separate expert panel)
