Country Artists To Welcome New Year's On CBS-TV

This holiday season, the Music City hosts "New Year's Eve Live: Nashville's Big Bash," a five-hour primetime concert special featuring Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert, Darius Rucker, Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton and more.  

Viewers can tune into the show starting at 7 p.m. CST on New Year's Eve via CBS and streaming service Paramount+, reports The Tennessean.

Bentley co-headlines the annual free concert a Bicentennial Mall with Dan + Shay and Zac Brown Band. Prior to COVID-19 stalling live events, the show drew between 150,000 and 200,000 people to the Nashville park. 

"Big Bash" airs opposite longtime ABC network program "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve," a television tradition from Times Square in New York City.

"From the very first show we did 12 years ago on Broadway, when nobody had much faith in us and the event, our goal was to compete head-up with New York at some point," said Butch Spyridon, president of Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp., host of the annual concert. 

The broadcast promises nearly 50 performances throughout Nashville, according to a news release. Tenured music manager Mary Hillard Harrington co-produces "Big Bash" with longtime CMA Awards executive Robert Deaton. 

 "[It's] really the best of what Nashville has to offer," Harrington said. "The biggest artists in our format? They're here on New Year's. ... Nashville is their home and they wanna help present Nashville to the world the same way we do." 

Deaton added, "For our broadcast, we want people to feel the rhythm and excitement of the city of Nashville and everything that we're about." 

Viewers and attendees at Bicentennial Mall can expect a fireworks show and music note drop at midnight; the program also aims to celebrate New Year's at 12 midnight EST for East Coast viewers. 

The show runs on CBS from 7p.m. until 12:30 a.m., pausing for late night local time news.