For even die-hard country music fans explaining the difference between the awards bestowed by the Country Music Assn. (CMA), which announced the nominations for their November kudos Wednesday, and the Academy of Country Music (ACM), which passes out honors every May, is harder than putting lipstick on a pig. The only difference is that the CMAs now air on ABC while the ACMs are on CBS. Both awards are bestowed by industry organizations with many of the same voters and — no surprise — many of the same winners.

For example, Kenny Chesney, who has won the CMA top prize of entertainer of the year for the last two years, competes again this year. And he has won the same award at the ACMs for four years running. Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood were the top vocalists with both groups last year and are competing again at the CMAs.

CMA was founded first, in Nashville in 1958, just one year after the Grammy Awards parent organization, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, was formed in Los Angeles. The association's mission was to serve as an industry think tank and networking organization for Nashville music makers, not to present awards. The first country music kudos were actually bestowed in 1965 by the upstart new Country and Western Music Academy, formed one year earlier by country artists who had ditched honky-tonk Nashville for the glamor of Hollywood. That group eventually morphed into ACM. In 1967, CMA started passing out prizes, too.

West Coasters like Merle Haggard dominated the early ACM awards, while Nashville faves Johnny Cash and Charlie Pride swept the CMAs. Nowadays both groups favor the same artists with one odd exception: Toby Keith, who's probably been punished by CMA members for not making Nashville his home.

Another key difference: The ACM Awards are staged in Las Vegas while the CMA Awards usually stay home in Nashville. Traditionally, the CMAs have more viewers than the ACMs but both are so popular that they're aired during sweeps months (May and November) and sometimes one or both beat the Nielsen ratings scored by the Primetime Emmys.

The CMAs and ACMs are responsible in part for the modern explosion of award shows on TV. Before the late 1960s the only awardcasts were the Oscars, Emmys and Tonys. Then the CMAs nabbed a spot in prime time, but NBC crammed it into its regular weekly "Kraft Music Hall." The Grammys only existed on TV in a rather dull, taped one-hour special billed as "Best on Record."

That all changed in 1971, when the Grammys went live in a stand-alone awardcast. When Paul McCartney showed up to accept an award for the busted-up Beatles, the crowd and TV viewing audience went crazy and ABC had a hit on its hands. Foolishly, however, the alphabet network gave up the broadcast rights one year later when the Grammys wanted to move their show to Nashville. CBS not only grabbed the rights, but also launched a live, stand-alone CMA show. The ACM awardscast was launched in 1972 too. Suddenly, there were three music-award shows on TV at the same time and all of them scored socko ratings.