November 16, 2019

Ray Stevens: CabaRay Nashville vanishes from RFD-TV...

Hello all...admittedly I hadn't been paying too much to all things internet this past week due to an increase in unpredictable winter weather that passed through here. I keep my computer shut down during those times...don't like having the computer on and there's a power outage. Anyway, something that I've been doing each Saturday morning since January this year when I arrive home from work is check the program guide for the episode details of the Ray Stevens television series, CabaRay Nashville. The show had been airing Saturday nights at 8:30pm Eastern on RFD-TV since this past January. It also airs Saturday nights at 8pm Eastern on a local PBS affiliate in my area, KET2, and since this past January I've been able to see two different episodes of Ray's television show during the 8-9pm hour. However, tonight (November 16th), RFD-TV decided to remove Ray's show from their schedule and replace it with a series featuring footage of Grand Ole Opry performances from the 1950s. As mentioned at the beginning of this blog entry I hadn't been on-line much this week and so I did some research and discovered that Country Legends: Grand Ole Opry Stars of the '50s was announced as a new series back on November 13th, just this past Wednesday. In the show's description it made no mention of it replacing CabaRay Nashville nor has there been any information regarding future airings of CabaRay Nashville.

To say I'm annoyed would be putting it mildly. It's extremely frustrating and a slap in the face to all of Ray's fans to have his program removed in favor of a new series. I hadn't come across any comment from the network regarding the removal of CabaRay Nashville but I can guess what they may say in their defense. The powers that be may declare that this new series fits in with Marty Stuart's program at 8pm and the Opry Encore program at 9pm and so it was natural to place the new series in the middle of those two programs. If that should be their explanation, fine, but where does that leave Ray's show and his viewers and his fans? See, it isn't just the fact of the series being removed (without advance warning), that's bad enough, but it's the fact that the network hasn't placed it in a different time-slot or made any kinds of statement of when it'll return. It makes no sense. The show was simply pulled from the network and not given another time-slot as if us, the show's viewers, are unimportant. It's a slap in the face. Now, should the network make any kind of statement regarding the show's future I'll post about it, of course...but I highly doubt such a statement will be forthcoming considering there was no warning that the show was going to be removed.

1 comment:

  1. I have been waiting for Ray's show to return and am very upset that it will not be on again. Do we always have to have reruns on country shows? We have watched them all and it's nice to have new shows. Will they take off Larry's Country Diner next? Ty for posting this and letting us Ray Fan's know.

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