Crook, Chase Returning To Tnn

A year and a half after they split over creative differences with The Nashville Network brass, program hosts Lorianne Crook and Charlie Chase are returning to the cable network.

Crook and Chase, who before their May 1995 departure had been a fixture on TNN for more than a decade, will host “Today’s Country,” a twice-weekly prime-time newsmagazine starting Jan. 6 at 5 p.m.

The one-hour show will focus on breaking news within the countrymusic industry. It will include celebrity interviews and on-scene reports from events nationwide.

The show will air Mondays at 5 p.m. and Thursdays at 7 p.m., with Monday’s edition to be broadcast live. There will also be a weekend edition of the series, with a different host.

“Today’s Country” is from Jim Owens & Associates, which also produced Crook & Chase’s last program for TNN, “Music City Tonight.”

Back in May 1995, Crook, Chase and Owens announced that they had “significant creative and philosophical differences” with TNN management. As a result, “Music City Tonight,” a successful nightly talk and variety series, was canceled, with Crook & Chase leaving the channel in December of that year.

Owens said TNN came after them and that Crook and Chase decided to return because they feel a need to keep a bond with the core country audience that watches the channel.