First, the shortlists for the flagship Artist Of The Year awards - both UK and international - will be extended from five contenders to ten. That follows the controversy this year when all of the nominees for the UK Artist Of The Year prize were men.
Previously, of course, there were separate awards for best male and best female artist, and one concern expressed when the event shifted to gender neutral prizes was that you'd end up with no women being nominated. That didn't happen the first year after the change was made, but did this year.
Presumably, the proposal to move to a longer shortlist with artist of the year is based on the knowledge that - after the 1200 members of the BRIT Voting Academy had voted - the female artists that should have been on 2023 shortlist were just below the top five in the rankings.
The other change is to the genre-specific awards that were added in 2022. Previously R&B was lumped in with pop music, which - it was argued - made it hard for R&B artists to get shortlisted, given the profile of the big pop acts. So, in 2024, there will be separate awards for pop and R&B.
BRIT producer the BPI says that these changes to improve representation and inclusion follow "extensive consultation within the BRITs organisation, relevant industry and Equality, Diversity & Inclusion groups, including the BPI's own Equity & Justice Advisory Group, and was a key part of The BRITs' annual review of all show elements following the 2023 ceremony".
But what, I'm sure you are all now wondering, will the awards handed to the surely super diverse mix of 2024 BRIT winners look like? Well, this year the actual BRIT gongs have been designed by visual artist Rachel Jones and they look like this.
