My experience is that country gets upset when you take a record to top 40 or AC before you take it to them or if you're working a record simultaneously, ... but we're not. We're working two separate records.

We think it's going to be a huge impact record. It's one of the most important records of the fourth quarter, for all genres. It is the biggest release in the country format, but aside from that, it's one of the biggest records in the business.

It brought us to a city that doesn't normally put us on the map. When you look at the media going into the show, it was double in terms of coverage on the networks and in print. On all levels, we got more bang for the buck.

We realized we'd be down as an industry this year. We didn't have the same caliber of releases and in the same quantity.

It's a split effort between the two of us.

It certainly was evident the night she won.

There was a concern at one moment. There was that small matter of a marriage in the middle of the recording process. We were still doing the tour, filming the special. There was a lot going on. He wasn't able to write the way he wanted to write until the end of that record. We were all kind of jumping.

I still think the year is going to end up down for us, as it will for the overall industry. There are no late releases that are going to save us for the year. We'll just do better than the rest of the world.

It's a dual approach.