Tnn Getting New Name, New Image,

Sat., Sept. 23, 2000

Richard Huff New York Daily News

So long, Minnie Pearl.

Cable’s TNN will shed its country bumpkin image and move to Manhattan in an attempt to become a broad-based entertainment channel appealing to a nationwide audience.

TNN, formerly known as The Nashville Network, has been absorbed into the MTV Networks family at Viacom and shortly will be renamed The National Network.

“This is kind of the next evolution to make it into a general entertainment network,” said Herb Scannell, president of Nickelodeon and TV Land, who now also heads the new channel.

In programming terms, that means a mix of movies and series on weekdays, while continuing with a blend of motorsports, outdoors programs and other fringe athletic events on the weekends.

Specific programming plans have not been decided. Scannell said a new on-air look will be in place in a few weeks.

For TNN it’s the latest, albeit most dramatic, shift in an ongoing process to reach more people. The channel launched in 1983 and has been built on a platform of country music and Southern-flavored programs mixed with sporting events such as stock-car racing, bull-riding, arena football and fishing shows.

Last month, the network averaged 512,000 homes tuned in during prime time, down 7 percent from the same period a year before. In comparison, the general entertainment network TBS averaged 1.6 million homes.

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