‘Nashville’ season 5 premiere date confirmed by CMT

It looks like we are going to be getting “Nashville” on CMT right after the start of the new year.

Today, the network has confirmed that the much-awaited fifth season, which is coming after ABC canceled the country-music drama, will be premiering on Thursday, January 5 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, an interesting spot given that it could eventually go head-to-head against a currently-popular ABC drama in “Scandal,” which should be returning at some point in the new year.

This announcement contradicts the earlier talk that the new season could premiere in December, which we personally liked but there were probably fears about viewership or having to take hiatuses over the course of the holidays. In the end, we suppose that the real thing to feel here is simply excitement that the show is coming back in the first place.

There are some obvious changes to the fifth season beyond the network change, with Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz joining as the new showrunners and with some cast members departing. There will more than likely be some further casting announcements in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, TVLine also claims that it is still possible that we could get some sort of after-show component at some point in the future, even though it was not included in the big announcement today. Given the theme of this network and some of the clear subject matter on the series, it certainly feels natural that executives would want to milk “Nashville” for all they possibly can now that they have original episodes coming up.

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