Gospel Music Network

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Gospel Music Network (GMN) was a US commercial Christian cable channel started on November 1, 1986 by Bill and Linda Airy in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Airys ran a local advertising agency, and Pepsi-Cola wanted to reach more African-American Mountain Dew drinkers. Since there was no nationwide gospel music channel, they launched GMN to fill that gap. GMN purposely avoided asking for on-air donations and instead relied on advertising and license fees.

GMN’s format was like MTV, mostly music videos, but it showed a wide range of gospel music, from Southern and Black gospel to Contemporary Christian. CCM Magazine called it the first network of its kind. Later networks with similar music-focused formats followed, such as Z Music Television and the Gospel Music Channel. After its first year, GMN estimated it could reach about two million viewers.

In 1988, GMN talked with Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) about carriage. TCI suggested expanding GMN to include many faith traditions—Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, and Jewish—and creating a single faith-based channel that wouldn’t do on-air fundraising and would serve the whole faith community rather than one denomination.

In 1989, the Airys sold their advertising agency and moved to Denver. Bill Airy joined TCI as president of VISN Group, Inc., a new subsidiary formed to merge GMN with programming from the National Interfaith Cable Coalition (NICC). TCI funded the development of the new network, initially called Vision Interfaith Satellite Network (VISN). VISN later became the Faith & Values Channel in the mid-1990s and was eventually acquired by the Hallmark Channel.

By 1991, when Z Music Television started, there was still no dedicated outlet specifically for Christian music videos.