Great American Faith & Living is an American cable television network owned by

Great American Media GAC Media, LLC, Trade name, doing business as Great American Media, is a Arlington, Texas-based media company. It is the owner of the U.S. cable networks Great American Family and Great American Faith & Living, and streaming service Pure Flix, G ...

, who also operates

Great American Family Great American Family is an American cable television network owned by Great American Media. The channel broadcasts family-oriented general entertainment programming such as television series and made-for-TV movies—some of which containing f ...

. The channel primarily broadcasts

westerns The Western is a genre of fiction typically set in the American frontier (commonly referred to as the "Old West" or the "Wild West") between the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the closing of the frontier in 1890, and commonly associated wit ...

and lifestyle programming. Established in 2014 as Ride TV, the network was originally focused on

equestrianism Equestrianism (from Latin , , , 'horseman', 'horse'), commonly known as horse riding ( Commonwealth English) or horseback riding (American English), includes the disciplines of riding, driving, and vaulting. This broad description includes the ...

. After being acquired by Great American Media, the network relaunched as GAC Living and refocused on lifestyle programming targeting the southern U.S.—effectively assuming the former format of

Great American Country Great American Family is an American cable television network owned by Great American Media. The channel broadcasts family-oriented general entertainment programming such as television series and Television film, made-for-TV movies—some of whi ...

after it was relaunched as GAC Family.

History

The channel originally launched as Ride TV, a high-definition channel focused on the non-

racing In sports, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific g ...

aspects of

equestrian sports Equestrian sports are sports that use horses as a main part of the sport. This usually takes the form of the rider being on the horse's back, or the horses pulling some sort of horse-drawn vehicle. General * * * * * * * * * * * * * ...

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 mi ...

s, and the associated

lifestyle Lifestyle is the interests, opinions, behaviours, and behavioural orientations of an individual, group, or culture. The term "style of life" () was introduced by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler in his 1929 book, ''The Case of Miss R.'', w ...

. Ride TV was stated to be targeting both a rural, " Heartland" audience and a wider general audience, with an executive explaining that "horses are universal. Everyone recognizes the beauty and the power of this animal. We try to cater to anyone who gets that feeling when they see a horse running." On June 8, 2021, it was announced that both Ride TV and

Discovery Inc. Discovery, Inc. was an American multinational mass media factual television conglomerate based in New York City. Established in 1982, the company operated a group of factual and lifestyle television brands, such as the namesake Discovery Chan ...

would be acquired by GAC Media, an investment group led by

Tom Hicks Thomas Ollis Hicks Sr. (born February 7, 1946), is an American private equity investor and sports team owner living in Dallas, Texas. ''Forbes'' magazine estimated Hicks' wealth at $1 billion in 2009, but it dropped to $700 million in 2010 ...

and former

Crown Media Holdings Hallmark Media (formerly Crown Media Holdings) is an American media production company with corporate headquarters located in Studio City, California, and is a subsidiary of Hallmark Cards. Hallmark Media consists of Crown Media Productions an ...

CEO Bill Abbott. In August 2021, GAC Media announced that Great American Country and Ride TV would be relaunched as

GAC Family Great American Family is an American cable television network owned by Great American Media. The channel broadcasts family-oriented general entertainment programming such as television series and made-for-TV movies—some of which containing f ...

and GAC Living on September 27, with the GAC initials re-

backronym A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The ...

ed to stand for "Great American Channels". GAC Living will focus on non-scripted lifestyle programming pertaining to the

American South The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, Dixieland, or simply the South) is census regions United States Census Bureau. It is between the Atlantic Ocean and the ...

(with GAC Family shifting to a family-oriented general entertainment format akin to

Hallmark Channel Hallmark Channel is an American cable television network owned by Hallmark Media, a subsidiary of Hallmark Cards. The channel broadcasts family-oriented general entertainment programming, including television series and made-for-TV movies. ...

), effectively assuming GAC Family's previous format. In July 2022, GAC Media announced that GAC Living would be renamed Great American Living on August 20, 2022, as part of their corporate rebranding as Great American Media. On October 9, 2023, Great American Media announced that the channel would rebrand again as Great American Faith & Living, with plans to increase its synergies with co-owned streaming service Great American Pure Flix by adding more faith-based programming.

Programming

The channel's schedule currently consists primarily of

and lifestyle programming. Its schedule was originally focused on horse sports such as equestrian,

rodeo Rodeo () is a competitive equestrian sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain and Mexico, expanding throughout the Americas and to other nations. It was originally based on the skills required of the working vaqu ...

, and

bull riding Bull riding is a rodeo sport that involves a rider getting on a bucking bull and attempting to stay mounted while the animal tries to bucking, buck off the rider. American bull riding has been called "the most dangerous eight seconds in sports." ...

(such as the PBR Velocity Tour), purposefully excluding horse racing, whose niche was already filled by the

TVG Network FanDuel TV (formerly TVG) is an American sports betting-oriented digital cable and satellite television network owned by FanDuel Group, the U.S. subsidiary of Irish bookmaker Flutter Entertainment. It primarily airs live coverage of U.S. and i ...

s. The channel has also produced original series, such as ''Cowgirls'' (a documentary-style series following women in rodeo) and ''This Old Horse'' (a documentary series chronicling notable horses, which was described as the network's equivalent to

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

's ''

30 for 30 ''30 for 30'' is the title for a series of documentary films airing on ESPN, its sister networks, and online highlighting interesting people and events in sports history. This includes four "volumes" of 30 episodes each, a 13-episode series und ...

'' franchise).

Carriage

In October 2021,

Frndly TV Frndly TV is an American streaming television service that offers live TV, on demand video and cloud-based DVR for over 40 live television networks. Frndly TV has a channel lineup with a focus on family-friendly programming, and includes U.S. n ...

reached a carriage agreement for GAC Family and GAC Living. In November 2021, GAC Media reached a deal with

Philo Philo of Alexandria (; ; ; ), also called , was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. The only event in Philo's life that can be decisively dated is his representation of the Alexandrian J ...

to add GAC Living and GAC Family.

References

External links

GAC Living website
{{U.S. family-oriented television channels Television channels and stations established in 2014 English-language television stations in the United States