GAC Media, LLC,

doing business as A trade name, trading name, or business name, is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is a "fictitious" business name. Registering the fictitious name w ...

Great American Media, is a

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...

-based media company, and owner of the U.S. cable networks

Great American Family Great American Family is an American cable television network. Owned by Great American Media, it broadcasts family-oriented general entertainment programming, including television series and Television film, made-for-TV movies. It was originall ...

and Great American Living.

History

The company was announced on June 7, 2021, through its acquisition of the cable networks

Great American Country Great American Family is an American cable television network. Owned by Great American Media, it broadcasts family-oriented general entertainment programming, including television series and made-for-TV movies. It was originally established in ...

and

Ride TV Great American Living (formerly Ride TV and GAC Living) is an American cable television network. Owned by Great American Media, it primarily broadcasts programming devoted to the lifestyles of the American South. Established in 2014, the networ ...

from

Discovery Inc. Discovery, Inc. was an American multinational mass media factual television conglomerate based in New York City. Established in 1985, the company operated a group of factual and lifestyle television brands, such as the namesake Discovery Chann ...

and Ride Television Network, Inc. respectively. The company is led by private equity investor

Tom Hicks Thomas Ollis Hicks Sr. (born February 7, 1946), is an American private equity investor and sports team owner living in Dallas, Texas. ''Forbes'' magazine estimated Hicks' wealth at $1 billion in 2009, but it dropped to $700 million in 2010 ...

, and Bill Abbott—who formerly served as CEO of

Crown Media Holdings Hallmark Media (formerly Crown Media Holdings) is an American media production company with corporate headquarters located in Studio City, California, and is a subsidiary of Hallmark Cards. Hallmark Media consists of Crown Media Productions and ...

. After taking over the channels, they were rebranded as the "Great American Channels", with GAC itself being relaunched as GAC Family and taking on a conservative,

family-friendly A family-friendly product or service is one that is considered to be suitable for all members of an average family. Family-friendly restaurants are ones that provide service to families that have young children. Frequently, family-friendly produc ...

entertainment format, and Ride TV becoming

GAC Living Great American Living (formerly Ride TV and GAC Living) is an American cable television network. Owned by Great American Media, it primarily broadcasts programming devoted to the lifestyles of the American South. Established in 2014, the networ ...

. GAC Family would emulate many of the programming decisions made by Abbott while running

Hallmark Channel The Hallmark Channel is an American television channel owned by Crown Media Holdings, Inc., which in turn is owned by Hallmark Cards, Inc. The channel's programming is primarily targeted at families, and features a mix of television movies and ...

, including a focus on original television films and holiday-themed content. It also signed deals with various actors associated with Hallmark Channel productions. In April 2022, GAC Media hired Candace Cameron Bure–who had worked with Hallmark Channel since 2008–in an executive role, which would see her develop and star in original productions for its networks. During its upfronts, Abbott stated that the company planned to expand into

over-the-top content An over-the-top (OTT) media service is a media service offered directly to viewers via the Internet. OTT bypasses cable, broadcast, and satellite television platforms: the types of companies that traditionally act as controllers or distributors ...

ventures, with plans for a lifestyle-based ad-supported streaming channel known as "Great American Adventures", and a "fan portal". In May 2022, GAC Media announced Great American Community, a planned service launching in September that would carry short-form programming featuring GAC talent and personalities, and feature

online forums An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...

allowing users to interact with them. The service would be free and ad-supported, but GAC Media did not rule out a premium tier in the future. In July 2022, GAC Media launched Great American Adventures on

Xumo Xumo ( ) is an American over-the-top internet television service owned by Comcast. Founded in 2011, it offers a free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) and advertising video on demand (AVOD) service that primarily offers a selection of pro ...

, which carries lifestyle and entertainment programming oriented towards "

Americana Americana may refer to: *Americana (music), a genre or style of American music *Americana (culture), artifacts of the culture of the United States Film, radio and television * ''Americana'' (1992 TV series), a documentary series presented by J ...

". Later that month, GAC Media announced that it would change its trade name to Great American Media, as part of a corporate rebranding that will also see GAC Family and Living renamed Great American Family and Great American Living on August 20, 2022. GAC Media will remain the company's legal name.

Assets

Linear networks

* Great American Living

Over-the-top services

* Great American Adventures * Great American Community

References

External links

* {{Great American Media 2021 establishments in Texas Companies based in Fort Worth, Texas Entertainment companies of the United States