Great American Country (or
GAC), is a
Nashville, TennesseeNashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
-based
country musicCountry music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
cable televisionCable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
network.
History
The station launched December 31, 1995 and
Garth BrooksTroyal Garth Brooks , best known as Garth Brooks, is an American country music artist who helped make country music a worldwide phenomenon. His eponymous first album was released in 1989 and peaked at number 2 in the US country album chart while climbing to number 13 on the Billboard 200 album chart...
' video "The Thunder Rolls" was the first video to air on GAC.
Scripps Networks acquired GAC from
Centennial, ColoradoThe city of Centennial is a Home Rule City located in Arapahoe County, Colorado, United States, and part of the Denver-Aurora metropolitan area. The city was to have a total population of 100,377 in 2010 census. Centennial is the tenth-most populous municipality in the state of Colorado and its...
-based Jones Radio Network on October 12, 2004. Scripps Networks, based in
Knoxville, TennesseeFounded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
, also owns popular lifestyle-oriented chanels
HGTVHGTV , is a cable-television network operating in the United States and Canada, broadcasting a variety of home and garden improvement, maintenance, renovation, craft and remodeling shows...
,
Food NetworkFood Network is a television specialty channel that airs both one-time and recurring programs about food and cooking. Scripps Networks Interactive owns 70 percent of the network, with Tribune Company controlling the remaining 30 percent....
,
DIY NetworkDIY Network is a channel owned by Scripps Networks Interactive that focuses on do it yourself projects at home.Television stations air local versions with local hosts with segments produced by the network. Branded DIY Network programming is also broadcast in Japan and the Philippines...
,
Cooking ChannelCooking Channel is a television specialty channel that airs recurring programs about food and cooking, owned by Scripps Networks Interactive. It is a spinoff of Food Network, also owned by SNI, but focuses more on instructional shows rather than "reality style" and contest programming that Food...
and
Travel ChannelThe Travel Channel is a satellite and cable television channel that is headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland, US. It features documentaries and how-to shows related to travel and leisure around the United States and throughout the world. Programming has included shows in African animal safaris,...
. The company was spun off from The E. W. Scripps Company in July 2008.
In addition to country
music videoA music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
s, Great American Country features original programming, special musical performances and live concerts.
Great American Country has been one of the fastest-growing cable networks for the past three years, and is available in more than 58 million U.S. households via cable and satellite. In late 2005,
Broadcasting & Cable, an industry trade publication, named GAC as one of TV's "Breakout Networks" heading into 2006, saying of the channel: "The emerging GAC is a younger, hipper version that respects Nashville's country roads but widens the boulevards."
The channel's popularity is helped by competing network
CMTCountry Music Television, or CMT, is an American country music-oriented cable television network. Programming includes music videos, taped concerts, movies, biographies of country music stars, game shows, and reality programs...
's declining reliance on regular music video blocks except in the mornings and moving towards programming or acquired programming which may or may not have any connection to southern culture, much less country music. Great American Country continues showing music videos in the afternoon and evening hours, and keeps its other programming limited to shows that pertain to country music. In a sense,
CMT Pure CountryCMT Pure Country is a digital cable and satellite television channel, it is the sister network to CMT. It showcases country music videos all day from the 1980s to the current day, using the same 8-hour programming wheel schedule repeated three times daily as sister networks MTV Hits and MTV Jams...
, and to a lesser extent,
Gospel Music Channelgmc is an American satellite and cable television channel, known from its 2004 launch until February 1, 2010 as Gospel Music Channel. It is also available in high-definition as a separate channel called gmcHD ....
and
RFD-TVRFD-TV, or Rural Free Delivery TV, is a United States satellite and cable television channel devoted to rural issues, concerns, and interests. The channel's name is a reference to Rural Free Delivery, the name for the United States Postal Service's system of delivering mail directly to rural patrons...
, could be considered the pure rivals to GAC in regards to their programming format.
AT&T U-verse dropped
Food NetworkFood Network is a television specialty channel that airs both one-time and recurring programs about food and cooking. Scripps Networks Interactive owns 70 percent of the network, with Tribune Company controlling the remaining 30 percent....
,
Cooking ChannelCooking Channel is a television specialty channel that airs recurring programs about food and cooking, owned by Scripps Networks Interactive. It is a spinoff of Food Network, also owned by SNI, but focuses more on instructional shows rather than "reality style" and contest programming that Food...
,
HGTVHGTV , is a cable-television network operating in the United States and Canada, broadcasting a variety of home and garden improvement, maintenance, renovation, craft and remodeling shows...
,
DIY NetworkDIY Network is a channel owned by Scripps Networks Interactive that focuses on do it yourself projects at home.Television stations air local versions with local hosts with segments produced by the network. Branded DIY Network programming is also broadcast in Japan and the Philippines...
and Great American Country on November 5, 2010 due to a carriage dispute. Two days later, however, the carriage dispute was resolved.
GAC Nights: Live From Nashville
Great American Country and ABC Radio Networks (now Cumulus Media) formed a partnership to produce a nightly radio show called
GAC Nights: Live From Nashville hosted by Suzanne Alexander, and co-hosted by Storme Warren, and Nan Kelley. It was broadcast from its studios at
Music RowMusic Row is an area just to the southwest of Downtown Nashville, Tennessee that is home to hundreds of businesses related to the country music, gospel music, and Contemporary Christian music industries...
in
Nashville, TennesseeNashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
. The show ran from 2007 to 2009, when it was canceled.