Garth Brooks is continuing to take country music global with a new radio station.
Videos by American Songwriter
On Thursday (June 15), Brooks announced the launch of his new radio station, The Big 615, which will broadcast out of Nashville on TuneIn Radio and is hosted by longtime country radio radio personality, Storme Warren. At a press conference at the 1230 Club in Nashville, Brooks explained that the station will play both the hits and deep cuts by artists ranging from legends like George Strait to modern acts including Carly Pearce.
“I love this radio station because it’s not the next generation or the current generation, it’s the entire family of country music,” Brooks said in a video advertising the station. While speaking to American Songwriter and other media, Brooks explained how terrestrial radio often works in partnership with the record labels, while The Big 615 will play “artists that outlive their label.”
“I want to hear new stuff from George Strait, I want to hear it right next to Luke Combs,” he said.
Brooks also asserted that they’re aiming to strike a “balance” between playing songs by male and female artists, in response to the unspoken rule on terrestrial country radio that dissuades playing songs by female artists back-to-back. A study published in May 2023, “They Won’t Play a Lady-O on Country Radio: Examining Back-to-Back Plays by Gender, Race, and Sexual Orientation,” examined airplay for one particular country station and found that across 19 days in 2022, back-to-back airplay of songs by women was less than one percent.
“I love this channel for the fact that the balance between guys and girls on this channel is fantastic,” he explained. “It is nothing to hear two females back to back on this channel. I think if I could put my hand up and go, ‘Hey guys, I think there’s something we’re seriously missing in country music right now,’ it’s the number of females and those voices.”
Richard Stern, CEO of TuneIn, said that the channel will reach 200 different connected devices and vehicle platforms across TuneIn’s global community of over 100,000 radio stations from 122 countries, allowing fans to listen in from all over the world.
Staying true to his mission of inclusivity, Brooks says he wants to use the channel and the music they play to start a “global conversation” in hopes of bringing together a worldwide audience.
“The chance we have here with a global conversation is to spread love, spread family,” he professed. “That’s what it’s all about. If we made this world smaller through music, then hopefully we can understand each other and fight less. So this is a good chance for us to do something really good.”
The Big 615 is now live.
Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images
