Nashville!

Nashville!
Broadcast area United States
Branding Nashville! cm
Slogan Good times, great country
Frequency XM 57
First air date 2001-09-25
Format Country music
Class Satellite Radio Station
Owner Clear Channel Communications
Sister stations KISS-XM, Mix, Music Summit, Extreme Talk, National Lampoon Comedy Radio, ReachMD, America's Talk, Sixx Sense, Talk Radio, Fox Sports Radio
Webcast Nashville! on iheartradio
Website Nashville!

Nashville! was a commercial radio channel on XM Satellite Radio. It was located on XM 57(previously 11) and plays a wide range of country music hits from the early 1990s through today. The channel was programmed out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Advertising sales are handled by Premiere Radio Networks. It was programmed by Kent Terry.

On June 8, 2011, it was replaced by a simulcast of WSIX-FM in Nashville, Tennessee.[1]

Programs/Personalities

WSIX (2001-2003)

As part of the operational assistance agreement with Clear Channel Communications, XM agreed to simulcast some of their FM radio stations. WSIX was one of those channels, simulcasting the FM station from Nashville, Tennessee. At the time, channel 11 was titled WSIX, after the station's call letters. Due to low subscription count at the time, the audience didn't concern themselves with the Nashville locality of the station. In 2004, XM decided to go commercial free, and WSIX was taken off the XM platform prior to that. It was replaced with a new XM exclusive channel called Nashville!, with a similar format.

In May 2006, the WSIX simulcast was returned to XM Satellite Radio (on XM 161) as Clear Channel's 5th commercial music channel, separate from Nashville!, only to be removed from the service again in August 2008.

Nashville! (2003- )

On 2003-12-01, the WSIX simulcast ended. The station was now on autopilot 24/7 with no jocks. One month later, the station dropped all commercial advertising, much against Clear Channel's wishes. Clear Channel stuck around while companies like Univision pulled their channels off the XM platform.

Nashville! logo from 2006-2009.

In March 2006, according to a 10-k filing, XM Satellite Radio mentioned that Clear Channel programmed music on XM would begin carrying commercials, including Nashville!. This has been done to fulfill an arbitration settlement between XM and Clear Channel. In response to this, XM Canada, DirecTV and AOL Radio removed this channel on 4/17/06 in favor of XM's commercial free equivalent, US Country. Nashville! now displays a "cm" next to its name on the XM unit's pad data to indicate that it is a commercial radio station. For a short period of time, Nashville! did not display song information on the XM unit's pad. Originally, Clear Channel opted to have static pad data on all of its channels, but due to complaints they acquired the hardware to properly display individual track information on the units.

Grand Ole Opry joins

In September 2007, XM Radio announced that the country music institution, the Grand Ole Opry, would begin broadcasting live three times a week on Nashville!, with performance encores on America.[2] The Opry broadcast for years on rival Sirius Satellite Radio, which carried a simulcast of Opry flagship station, WSM in Nashville. Sirius' broadcast ended in September 2006 without warning, and Sirius claimed that the decision to drop the station and the Grand Ole Opry was mutual.

On October 20, Nashville! broadcast its first Grand Ole Opry concert, which was also on the Opry's 82nd birthday celebration. The concerts air every Tuesday, Friday and Saturday night.

Additional programming

In August 2008, following suit to sister station KISS-XM, Nashville! added new personalities to the lineup. The jocks were rather scarce, and had longer shifts. Bama & Rob started in mornings, with Cindy Spicer in afternoons. These jock shifts were, and remain voice-tracked. Coincidentally, this same month contained the departure of WSIX-FM from the XM dial, which would keep syndicated hosts Big D and Bubba and Blair Garner off XM for another year. In 2009, the channel became a lot more open with its audience, adding MySpace and Facebook pages, and later a Twitter account. The Nashville program director and personalities actively communicate to listeners on these social networking services. The channel also introduced a feedback number for listeners to call.

In August 2009, the lineup was altered once again. This time, Premiere Radio's Big D and Bubba, and Blair Garner, were added to the channel in their live morning and overnight timeslots respectively. Drew Thomas and Tony Lama were added to mid-days, and morning team Bama, Rob & Heather were moved to afternoons. Evenings remained jockless.

In late September 2009, Sirius XM did not renew their shared agreement with Clear Channel over the Grand Ole Opry broadcasts, and instead opted to keep the shows to themselves for delayed broadcasts on The Roadhouse XM 10. The announcement was not a surprise, as Sirius XM had barred any promotion of the Opry on Nashville! since the programming merger in November 2008. The timeslot once occupied by the Saturday night Opry broadcasts has since been replaced by a new show.

On June 8, 2011, Clear Channel began once again, simulcasting WSIX-FM Nashville on Nashville's signal on XM 57.

References

  1. ↑ "XM Channel Lineup" (PDF). 2011-06-08. Retrieved 2011-06-17.
  2. ↑ "Grand Ole Opry to Debut on XM in October" (Press release). XM Satellite Radio. 2007-09-26. Retrieved 2007-09-26.
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