Call it the battle of the acronyms: CMA stands for the Country Music Association, the Nashville, Tenn., organization behind the prestigious Country Music Awards. ACM is the 4,900-member Academy of Country Music, based in Encino, which also presents an annual awards show honoring the best of country music.

ACM’s new chief, Pete Fisher, is relocating from Brentwood, Tenn., to Los Angeles to make sure the country music world knows the difference.

Fisher, 17-year vice president and general manager of Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, will move to Los Angeles on Jan. 28 to assume the post on Jan. 30. He admitted with a laugh that “using the same three letters in our name” leads to some confusion between the organizations as well as their annual televised awards shows.

Nashville’s CMA is older, founded in 1958, compared with ACM, launched in 1964. But the ACM Awards, which will air on CBS later this year, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2015, and CMA’s awards didn’t reach that milestone until last year.

More importantly, the nonprofit ACM was founded because the many emerging country music artists in 1960s Los Angeles – when Westerns were a staple of movie and TV production – wanted to put the “western” back into so-called country and western music.

The goal of Fisher, 53, is to strengthen ties between country music and L.A. TV, movie, and music production companies. He noted that ACM was responsible for pitching the CBS series “Nashville” to producer Lions Gate Television. Still, he said, today’s country music defines itself more by philosophy than geography.

“The history of country music might be defined by the instruments: the fiddle, the steel guitar, cowboy hats,” said Fisher. “Nowadays, country music is really defined by all-American values.”

The key, he said, is authenticity: “Country music is enjoying a lift because of that. It’s real people singing real songs about real life.”

– Diane Haithman