The Garth Channel comes to a close after six years
Garth Brooks and SiriusXM are ending The Garth Channel (ch. 55) on September 30th after six years. The station launched in September 2016, in the midst of his 390 date comeback arena tour. Brooks says the channel has been timed to end as The Stadium Tour wraps this weekend in Dublin, Ireland.
“[The Garth Channel] sold a ton of tickets for us on the [arena] tour and a ton of tickets for us on The Stadium Tour and now the drive for what it was and what it stood for is coming to a close,” Brooks tells Billboard. “We plan this purposefully for all our stuff to be coming to a close here to see what our next step might be.”
“We are incredibly grateful and proud to have collaborated with Garth to present the Garth Channel on SiriusXM,” a SiriusXM spokesperson says. “We have enjoyed our creative relationship and look forward to working on future projects together.”
Completely curated by Brooks himself, The Garth Channel featured Garth’s picks from yesterday and today’s pop, country, R&B and rock artists mixed with his own award-winning songs.
Both Brooks and Yearwood have hosted shows on the channel, including his Facebook Live series, Inside Studio G: A Monday Night Conversation. The channel launched with Brooks’ first-ever headlining performance at the historic Ryman Auditorium.
A replacement for channel 55 is expected to be announced soon, but he says he may consider having it returned someday.
“In the future, if something happens, I hope my call is welcome,” Brooks adds. “[The SiriusXM executives said], ‘It’s welcome anytime.’ They’ve been very sweet about everything from start to finish.”
Brooks wraps his three year stadium tour this weekend in Dublin, Ireland after selling out five sold out shows when they went on sale last fall. Four hundred thousand tickets sold out within four hours, marking a new milestone for the country star who hasn’t performed in the city in 25 years. Brooks last played Dublin in May 1997, three months before the historic Central Park show that saw an estimated 800,000 to one million country fans attend.
Since the tour began in March 2019, The Stadium Tour has broken at least two dozen attendance records and has sold an average of 95,000 tickets in each city. His largest single show so far on this trek is Baton Rouge with a sell out of 102,000 ticket sellout in two hours which registered as a small earthquake during “Callin’ Baton Rouge.”
Brooks has one more group of concerts on his calendar following Dublin shows. Last month, he sold out three shows at the newly expanded Thunder Ridge Nature Arena at Bass Pro Shops Big Cedar Lodge in the Ozarks of Missouri. What was supposed to be one night quickly turned into three due to an overwhelming turnout to celebrate one of the most iconic business stories in America’s history. Brooks sold more than 55,000 tickets to the three concerts from September 30th through October 2nd.
The country superstar is prepping to release The Anthology, Part II: The Next Five Years on November 15th. Brooks picks up where he left off in The Anthology, Part I: The First Five Years in 2017, telling his story in his own words and offering fascinating insights to his career and personal life from 1996-2001. Completing the Anthology, Part II is a six disc set of musical highlights from albums released during that time — all of which will be heard in a new way after reading about the inspiration for the song and how the magic was created in the studio — plus two previously unreleased recordings — a studio recording of “Tearin’ It Up (And Burnin’ It Down)” and a duet version of “To Make You Feel My Love” with wife Trisha Yearwood.
Brooks is also expected to open his forthcoming Friends In Low Place entertainment complex at 411 Broadway in Nashville later this year. The country star is fitting the bill for a Nashville Metro police substation in the adjacent alley to the downtown complex.
