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New Year's Eve Live: Nashville's Big Bash
New Year's Eve Live: Nashville's Big Bash is a New Year's Eve television special that has been broadcast by CBS since December 31, 2021. The special features coverage of festivities in Nashville, Tennessee, primarily featuring performances by country musicians from the Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park among other venues, culminating with Nashville's music note drop at midnight in the Central Time Zone. Since the 2022–23 edition, the special has also incorporated coverage of the Times Square ball drop in New York City, at midnight in the Eastern Time Zone. HistoryCBS had long been associated with Guy Lombardo's annual New Year's Eve specials from the Waldorf Astoria New York on radio and television, featuring his band The Royal Canadians.[1][2] Following Guy's death in 1977, and a failed attempt to maintain the special with his brother Victor Lombardo amid mounting pressure from New Year's Rockin' Eve on ABC, CBS replaced the special with Happy New Year, America in 1979,[3][4][5] which ran until 1996. Barring 1998 (where CBS scheduled an episode of Late Show with David Letterman to compete with The Tonight Show)[6] and 1999 (where CBS aired a millennium special co-hosted by then-CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather and actor Will Smith),[7] CBS had not carried a New Year's Eve special since, and had instead carried reruns of its regular prime time and late-night lineups against ABC, Fox, and NBC's offerings.[8] In September 2021, CBS announced that it would introduce a new country music-oriented special from Nashville, Tennessee, New Year's Eve Live: Nashville's Big Bash, on December 31, 2021, in partnership with the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. The five-hour special would be broadcast primarily from Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park and other locations across the city (such as Skydeck on Broadway), with headlining performances by Dan + Shay, Dierks Bentley, Lady A, and the Zac Brown Band among others, and culminating with Nashville's music note drop at midnight in the Central Time Zone.[9] In November 2021, CBS announced that Rachel Smith of Entertainment Tonight and radio personality Bobby Bones would serve as co-hosts.[10] On December 31, Zac Brown announced that he had contracted COVID-19, and that Zac Brown Band had therefore been dropped from the special.[9] The special had an average audience of 4.8 million viewers in primetime (finishing in second place behind New Year's Rockin' Eve on ABC in the same window),[11] and peaked at 5.51 million viewers near midnight ET.[12] CBS finished in third place overall behind NBC's inaugural Miley's New Year's Eve Party and New Year's Rockin' Eve.[11] The special returned for 2023, with Smith joined as co-hosts by country singers Jimmie Allen and Elle King,[12][13] and performances by Kelsea Ballerini (with special guest Wynonna Judd), Dierks Bentley, Flo Rida (with Jimmie Allen), Luke Bryan, Sheryl Crow (with guest Ashley McBryde), Little Big Town, Steve Miller (with guests King Calaway), Thomas Rhett (with Riley Green), Darius Rucker, Lainey Wilson, the Zac Brown Band (with The War and Treaty), as well as an hour-long, headlining set by Brooks & Dunn.[14][15] The special also added segments covering the Times Square ball drop, with Cody Alan of CMT and CBS New York weather reporter Lonnie Quinn as correspondents.[16] CBS once again finished in third place for the night, down from 2022 with an average of 3.9 million viewers, and peaking at an average of 4.8 million near midnight ET;[17] following the lead of NBC's special the previous year, both Nashville's Big Bash and New Year's Rockin' Eve changed their formats to end their primetime segments at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT, and begin their late-night segments at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT.[18][19][20] The special returned for 2024, with Smith and King returning as co-hosts,[21] and scheduled performances by Bailey Zimmerman, Blake Shelton, the Brothers Osborne, Carly Pearce, Cody Johnson, Elle King, Grace Bowers, Hardy, Jackson Dean, Jon Pardi, Kane Brown, Lainey Wilson, Lynyrd Skynyrd (commemorating the band's 50th anniversary), Megan Moroney, Morgan Wallen, Old Dominion, Parker McCollum, Trace Adkins, and Trombone Shorty.[22][23] Benefiting from a lead-in by NFL coverage, CBS averaged 8.23 million viewers during the primetime segment, and 8.12 million during the 11:30 p.m.–12:30 a.m. segment, which were 112% and 51% increases over 2022–23 respectively.[24] The 2024–25 edition will feature Keith Urban as a co-host replacing King, with Urban joined by Kane Brown and Jelly Roll as headliners.[25] References
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