Garth Brooks‘ newest venture into streaming and broadcasting is intentionally old school. The country superstar just bought a Nashville radio station, but that’s not all.
Instead of mimicking corporate playlists and national news / entertainment breaks found elsewhere in Nashville and across America, he’s going to emphasize local.
“If it’s going on in Nashville, we want the people of Middle Tennessee to be aware of it,” he says at his website.
Additionally, female artists will get a real chance to be heard with regularity. They will not be dismissed as the tomatoes in the salad at Garth-FM (our name, not his).
- On Tuesday (Nov. 11), Garth Brooks announced his Sevens Network, LLC, purchased independent rock radio station Lighting 100 (WRLT-FM), 100.1 FM.
- Once approved by the FCC, his station will take that space and the indie-rock station will move to 106.3 FM.
- Brooks has previously held significant roles at TuneIn, Amazon Music and his own GhostTunes service.
A look at Brooks’ history with streaming and broadcasting platforms shows a series of hits and misses, but first let’s look at what this radio station is, and isn’t.
Garth Brooks Radio Station Details
Brooks refers to the new station as FM-100 and confirms it will be a country station. New music and new artists will have a home there, but it will not be a “reporting station.”
This is important and understandable. Reporting stations tell radio chart platforms like Billboard and Country Aircheck / Mediabase which songs they play so the totals can be added to a tally that ultimately creates airplay charts. There are about 150 “reporters,” and these stations tend to get a lot of attention (and pressure) from record labels to play their signed artists and current singles.
This process, and corporate ownership, is part of what makes radio stations across America feel homogeneous. Brooks is saying that without this pressure he’s free to select songs and artists that truly serve his audience.
It’s important to note that a new radio station would not be asked to be a reporting station right away, and that Nashville already has several reporters, so it’s not clear when it would ever happen. Still, a lack of outside pressure will allow him to fulfill this promise:
“This is an opportunity to bring the entire family of country music together in one spot … the legends, the greats, and the future greats,” he says.
His website notes that FM-100 will feature female artists from the 1960s through today. “We need both sides telling the story of country music,” he says.
Garth Brooks Radio Station – Live and Local?
Brooks didn’t promise live radio deejays but he did emphasize local. In addition to news and events happening in Middle Tennessee, he says listeners can be sure they’ll get immediate weather alerts.
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Specifically, he asks why radio stations don’t break in with important weather information during severe storms. Nashville Severe Weather has agreed to interrupt FM-100 broadcasting as necessary, as often as necessary.
He’ll also work with local tourism groups to spread necessary information and promote Music City in a positive way. At the very end he announced a more ambitious goal, one that seems to contradict the previous goals.
“The dream is to be a 24-hour GLOBAL station,” he says, “to bring Country Music (sic) to places on the planet it has yet to go.”
Garth Brooks Broadcast and Streaming History
In the 12 years since coming out of retirement, Brooks has attached himself to several music distribution services. Some have worked better than others.
In September 2014 he announced GhostTunes, a music download service that allowed artists and record labels to choose if customers could download singles or full albums. They could also set price point. This more ideological iTunes competitor was short-lived. In 2017, it was absorbed into Amazon Music.
Brooks worked extensively with Amazon over the next several years and recorded TV commercials for a fledgling Amazon Music service. The partnership exists still today, with Brooks’ music on sale at Amazon. His participation has become more limited.
During this time, Brooks also partnered with SiriusXM for the Garth Channel. This station featured his music and music from artists he loved and appreciated. The impact was tangible.
Keith Whitley‘s Country Music Hall of Fame candidacy got a huge push there, but Brooks bowed out in September 2022, after six years.
That’s because he started to work with TuneIn. In June 2023, he announced the Big 615 with the streaming radio platform. Several more stations were promised, but only one materialized. While at TuneIn, he held true to a promise for gender equality, although a station exclusively dedicated to women in country music never materialized.
This partnership ended in September 2026. Two months later he announced FM-100, a station that includes ideas from all of his previous ventures.
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Gallery Credit: Carena Liptak
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Garth Brooks has been filling the biggest arenas in the U.S. and the world since he launched his country career in 1989. There are 20 songs that have emerged as fan favorites, and Brooks has played some of them hundreds of times over the years.
Data reflected runs through March 2024
Gallery Credit: Sterling Whitaker
