Garth Brooks’ TuneIn Partnership Ends Abruptly After Three Years

Garth Brooks and TuneIn are no longer business partners. The singer’s team announced that his Sevens Network and TuneIn Inc. have ended their three-year relationship.

• Garth Brooks announced a partnership with TuneIn in June 2023.
• At the time, he revealed the Big 615 channel and promised more stations to come.
• Former SiriusXM radio host Storme Warren was hired to be the voice of the channel.

While no explanation for the end of the Garth Channel and Tailgate Radio was given (the Big 615 will continue to air through 2026), a press release alludes to TuneIn’s 2025 acquisition by the Stingray Group Inc. as a factor. That transaction was valued at $175 million at the time (Nov. 2025).

Brooks’ team also hinted at a new multimedia and radio initiative in the coming months and publicly said nothing but kind things about Stingray.

Both the Garth Channel and Tailgate Radio will sign off after Tuesday (Sept. 22).

Did Garth’s TuneIn Partnership Do What He Promised?

The announcement of Brooks partnership with TuneIn and the Big 615 was not quiet. There was a heavy marketing campaign in 2023 and media was brought in to hear the singer talk about plans for the station(s).

Warren was a very high-profile host at SiriusXM and his involvement gave the station instant legitimacy. Brooks promised his presence would only grow as time went along.

During that press conference he hinted at multiple new channels, including one he wanted wife Trisha Yearwood to have a heavy hand in.

“I’m really hoping to launch a station called BABE,” he said. “It’s the bad a– b—-es of entertainment. I’d love to see her heavily involved in that channel.”

BABE didn’t materialize but Tailgate Radio and the Garth Channel did. More than anything, Brooks wanted his stations to break free of vanilla playlists.

“I’m hoping someone in a country goes, ‘What in the hell is that sound?’ And you go, ‘That, my friend, is a steel guitar,'” he said.

“I think there are some artists that outlive their label … I wanna hear the new stuff from George Strait. I wanna hear it right next to Luke Combs,” he added.

A brief look at the Big 615 programming reveals some key differences. For example, the 11AM hour on Sept. 18 includes a Lainey Wilson single, a Brooks & Dunn hit, newcomers Tigirlily Gold and Chris Janson’s single. There’s also a George Strait deep cut.

Per OnlineRadioBox, “MIA Down In MIA” (from Cowboys and Dreamers, 2024) played at 11:19, right after Ashley McBryde’s “What If We Don’t” and right before the Chicks’ “Cowboy Take Me Away.”

“I love this channel for the fact that the balance between the guys and girls on this channel is fantastic,” he said in 2023. “It is nothing to hear two females back-to-back on this channel.”

Got that, too. After the Chicks came Kassi Ashton’s song “Chrome Pony.”

Garth Brooks’ Long + Bumpy Road To Streaming

This venture with TuneIn is just the latest of Brooks’ many similar efforts to find the right multimedia partner. Most of these relationships ended with a soft thud.

Prior to TuneIn, Brooks was the face of Amazon Music and he had his own channel on SiriusXM. Before that, he announced his own music streaming service called GhostTunes. This was by far his most ambitious undertaking as he was trying to build a platform that could compete with iTunes.

Each of these announcements followed a similar pattern — big kickoff event and then not much else to remind you they were still there.

The Country Music Hall of Famer remains the most notable artist to not allow his music to stream on platforms such as Spotify, Pandora or YouTube Music. He’s long said the reason for this is because he’s sticking up for songwriters, especially those who wrote important deep cuts on his albums.