CMT Unveils Details for ‘Nashville’ Aftershow

CMT is expanding Nashville‘s footprint.

The Viacom-owned cabler is set to launch a digital aftershow on Thursday pegged to the country music drama’s official season-five premiere, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

Each episode of Nashchat will be filmed live from a living room in Nashville — where the show also shoots — and feature cast and crew interviews, original music, series insiders and fan recaps of the latest episode each week. Hosted by country music personality and Nashville superfan Amy Brown, the digital companion show will begin immediately after the premiere on Jan. 5 at 11 p.m. ET/PT on Facebook Live via CMT’s Facebook page.

In addition to Facebook, CMT will take advantage of other social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter to post Nashchat behind-the-scenes content, Nashville cast content and other clips and materials between episodes.

Series regular Chris Carmack, who plays Will Lexington, will appear on the first episode of Nashchat on Thursday night.

“Fans saved Nashville. Now we’re inviting fans into our living room to celebrate the characters, stories and music they love,” CMT president Brian Philips said in a statement. “With Nashchat, we’ll create a home across all social media culminating with a Facebook Live interactive recap and fan chat immediately following new episodes.”

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The impending launch of Nashchat comes at a major turning point for Nashville, which is going into its fifth season with new showrunners Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick and a new network in CMT. The country music drama, which hails from Lionsgate, ABC Studios and Opry Entertainment, previously aired on ABC for its first four seasons before the network unexpectedly pulled the plug in May. CMT teamed with Hulu — which will stream new episodes the day after they air on CMT — to resurrect the series a month later.

Nashville is just the latest series to get the aftershow treatment. AMC has found success with Talking Dead, the companion to The Walking Dead. The trend caught fire in 2016 with the launches of aftershows for Better Call Saul, also on AMC, Game of Thrones, Mr. Robot and Orphan Black. Like Nashchat, the latter three aired predominantly online. On the unscripted side, ABC unveiled an aftershow for Bachelor in Paradise called After Paradise.

Nashville officially kicks off its fifth season with a two-hour series premiere Thursday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CMT.