First the good: Country music showed that it can still draw a crowd when putting on the 44th Annual Country Music Awards. ABC had the highest ratings of the night, finishing with a 4.7 rating / 13 share among adults 18-49 and averaged 16.4 million viewers for the show.

The bad: The show, which was hosted by Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley, was still down viewers from years past and early returns estimate it might be the lowest rated telecast ever for the CMAs.

So I guess the glass is either half-empty or half-full depending on how you want to look at it. 16.4 million viewers is certainly nothing to sneeze at. It will be interesting to see how the other country awards shows compare.

Watching the awards show is always exciting and this years show was no exception. For the third straight year Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood hosted the program and their quick witted banter was actually entertaining to say the least.

It's always fun to see who performs, who presents and how bent out of shape the fans get about it all. We all want our favorite artists to perform and when they aren't chosen things can get pretty heated out there on twitter and facebook and the like. I get a good chuckle out of that. Anyway, this years performers were all pretty darn good and nothing too unexpected took place.

At the end of the night these were the winners:

Musician of the Year – Mac McAnally

Music Video of the Year – “The House That Built Me” Miranda Lambert, Director: Trey Fanjoy

Vocal Event of the Year – “Hillbilly Bone” Blake Shelton and Trace Adkins

Single of the Year – “Need You Now” Lady Antebellum, Producers: Paul Worley and Lady Antebellum

Song of the Year – “The House That Built Me” Songwriters: Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin

New Artist of the Year – Zac Brown Band

The 44th CMA Awards, billed as Country Music's Biggest Night, will take place tomorrow night in Nashville. The show will be hosted by Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley. There are a lot of new names on the list this year so we'll be prepared for some surprises and plenty of fan outrage!

Here is the complete list of nominees for the 2010 CMA Awards:

Kid Rock is the latest artist added to the list of performers for this years CMA Awards. Since he is nominated in the Musical Event of the Year category for his collaboration with the Zac Brown Band on 'Don't You See', it's only fitting that he be asked to perform. Not to mention that his new album 'Born Free' hits stores November and contains collaborations with Trace Atkins, Zac Brown and Martina McBride.

Kid has been part of the country music scene for a number of years now and has "always been fascinated with the south and southern culture and everything along with it."

"One of the things my dad always said was, 'If you want to be a carpenter, don't hang out with a painter.' So, I was like, 'Nashville has some of the best musicians and songwriters in the world, so I think I'll start hanging out down there and learning something.'"