CMT Picks Up ‘Nashville’ for its Sixth Season

CMT has announced “Nashville” will return for a new season, its second on the cable net and sixth overall, with 16 new episodes premiering in early 2018. In addition, the network revealed a midseason premiere date of Thursday, June 1 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Hulu will continue to stream episodes the day after they premiere on CMT.

“Nashville” ranks as CMT’s highest-rated and most-watched show in the network’s history, averaging 2.1 million weekly viewers (Live+7). In addition, CMT garnered the biggest year-over-year growth this quarter than any other top 50 channel on cable (excluding news nets).

Rachel Bilson (“The OC,” “Hart of Dixie”) and Kaitlin Doubleday (“Empire”) will join the series in the second half of season five. In addition, fresh off the success of “Big Little Lies,” Jeff Nordling will recur in the role of Brad Maitland, an extremely successful, charming, egotistical, narcissistic owner of the most successful record label in Nashville.

The midseason premiere picks up 10 weeks after the events that unfolded in the midseason finale. Deacon helps Daphne with a school project, but Daphne feels unmotivated. Juliette gives Maddie unsolicited advice about a song. Scarlett and Gunnar receive news about the baby.

“Nashville” is set against the backdrop of the city’s music scene and follows the lives of country music superstars as well as the up-and-coming performers and songwriters trying to get ahead in the business. The series stars Hayden Panettiere, Clare Bowen, Chris Carmack, and Charles Esten.

The series is executive produced by Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick (the creators of “Thirtysomething”), Steve Buchanan and Callie Khouri.