Garth Brooks Plans Country Station on Nashville’s 100.1 FM

By Grace Kim

Garth Brooks’s Sevens Network, LLC plans to buy Nashville’s 100.1 FM slot from Tuned in Broadcasting for FM-100, a new country station, pending Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval. Brooks said it would mix younger and historically established artists, with special emphasis on female artists. Lightning 100, an adult-alternative station (built around eclectic programming), would move rather than disappear.

Brooks’s announcement described Lightning 100 as a respected independent station that shaped Nashville for decades. If the FCC approves, Lightning 100 will move to Cromwell Media’s 106.3 FM and 102.5 FM’s HD3 (secondary digital) frequency. Its adult-alternative, or triple-A, format would remain intact as FM-100 would take the middle of the dial.

Until the FCC approves the sale, Lightning 100 will keep broadcasting from WRLT-FM/100.1. Brooks said the arrangement could help fund the owner while allowing the station to remain on air and giving his new service a home in the middle of the Nashville FM dial. He presented the swap as a potential gain for both indie-rock and country audiences.

Brooks said FM-100 would serve locals rather than operate as a reporting station, meaning it would not report current hits’ airplay to industry charts. Instead, he said, it would promote rather than compete with Nashville’s local channels, and serve the city’s businesses. His plan combines terrestrial (over-the-air) and digital radio, with live local information delivered by people rather than pre-recorded national programming.

Brooks said he had been frustrated that pre-recorded national programming left Nashville residents unaware of local emergencies. He sees FM-100 as a place for real-time updates from actual humans, a form of local reporting he considers increasingly rare in city broadcasting.

The service would initially prioritize Nashville residents, visitors and tourists, with international reach coming later. Brooks described serving Music City as a privilege.

The project’s origin was an accidental collision between that local-information idea and an old fundraising appeal. Brooks said the idea began in 2025, when he saw a social-media post from Lightning 100 urging the station’s survival. He had mistaken it for a current appeal, although the plea for funds dated from the COVID era, about six years earlier.

At the time, Brooks said, he was looking for an information station serving Nashville locals, visitors and tourists. A country artist buying an indie-rock station made no sense to him. His solution joined the two needs: a country service at 100.1 and an indie-rock station able to remain nearby on the dial.

Brooks framed the proposal as a union of country music’s history and future. “This is an opportunity to bring the entire family of country music together in one spot… the legends, the greats and the future greats,” Brooks said. He tied the venture to Nashville’s Newest City in America label and said the station should grow with the city.

What changes for women in country radio?

Brooks said female artists were underserved in a heavily male-dominated country format and historically received significantly less airplay (radio exposure) than male counterparts. His website said FM-100 could feature women from the 1960s through today’s stars, pairing country music’s builders with its present leaders. “We NEED both sides telling the story of country music,” he said.

The practical change would appear in repeated exposure to a wider set of artists, not merely in a change of ownership. Brooks’s announcement sets an editorial priority but gives no numerical airplay target, launch date or detailed playlist. His promise becomes measurable once FM-100 starts broadcasting and its schedule and airplay data become visible.

Brooks described a 24-hour global station as his eventual goal, one that could carry country music to places where it had not yet reached. His plan starts with local service before international reach.

The local-service and global ambitions differ in scale, but the underlying format combines live information with broad historical coverage. The launch schedule will test whether those promises can coexist.

The FCC decision is the next practical checkpoint. Approval would place Brooks’s FM-100 at 100.1 and move Lightning 100 to Cromwell Media’s two frequencies; until then, Lightning 100 continues at 100.1. FM-100’s credibility will rest on whether it turns the promises of emergency information, wider female airplay and global reach into a working schedule.