Jim Owens, Veteran Country Music Television Producer, Dies at 84

Television producer Jim Owens, known for creating country music television programming that dominated television ratings in the 1980s and 1990s, died on Friday (March 4) in Franklin, Tenn. He was 84.

Owens’ wife of nearly four decades, Lorianne Crook, was by his side at the time of his passing.

Born in South Carolina on Aug. 27, 1937, Owens made his first push into national syndication in 1977, when he created and produced A Concert Behind Prison Walls, featuring Johnny Cash, Linda Ronstadt and Roy Clark. In 1978, Owens launched country music’s first fan-voted live awards show, the Music City News Country Awards. The awards show rose to No. 1 in ratings in syndication. Owens syndicated and produced the show via his own company through 1990.

In 1983, Owens set his sights on creating an Entertainment Tonight-style program focusing on country music. He teamed entertainment news correspondent Crook with radio and local TV personality Charlie Chase. Owens’ show, This Week in Country Music, offered a blend of news and interviews with country music artists and performances.

Two years later, TNN: The Nashville Network secured a deal to exclusively partner with Jim Owens Entertainment for content creation. For the next 15 years, Owens crafted and produced the bulk of the highest-rated programming on TNN, including the first daily and weekly country music news shows, awards programs, variety specials, musical documentaries and lifestyle programming.

Crook and Chase were named official TNN ambassadors and took the show on location around the world between 1985 and 1999, with productions be held in Canada, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Russia and the United Kingdom, as well as stateside from Los Angeles, Houston, New York, Orlando and more.

Owens’s productions in the 1980s and 1990s included TNN/Music City News Country Awards (1985-1996), Weekday (1988-1990), Weekend (1988-1990), Country Standard Time (1990-1991), TNN/Music City News Songwriters Awards (1991-1995), and Yesteryear (1994-1995).

In 1993 Owens brokered a deal with TNN to air Crook & Chase in the primetime 90-minute slot held by Ralph Emery’s Nashville Now. With more than 500 episodes in the vaults, Music City Tonight signed off in 1995, allowing Crook & Chase to return to national syndication from Universal Studios in Hollywood. Crook and Chase also released the best-selling autobiography Crook & Chase: Our Lives, The Music & The Stars. Owens’s company continued with programming including Celebrities Offstage with Lorianne Crook (1988-1995), Funny Business with Charlie Chase (1989-1995), Crook & Chase Tonight (1997) and This Year in Country Music (1989-1999).

During this era Owens’ production output of specials and TV shows continued, including Celebrities Offstage with Lorianne Crook (1988-1995), Funny Business with Charlie Chase (1989-1995), Crook & Chase Tonight (1997) and This Year In Country Music (1989-1999).

After TNN closed in 2000, Owens produced (and Crook hosted) several Celebrities Offstage specials, in addition to 180 episodes of Celebrity Kitchen for GAC. In 2007, Crook & Chase returned to television, first on RFD and then later in syndication through 2015. The Crook & Chase Countdown has been heard on hundreds of radio stations since 1989 and is currently distributed by Premiere Networks/iHeart Media. Owens executive produced the countdown, alongside the companion podcast Crook & Chase Nashville Chats, until his passing.

Jim Owens Entertainment has held the trademarks for TNN: The Nashville Network since 2011, with over 10,000 hours of footage from a 45-year library of original productions and other raw footage.

In lieu of flowers, the family encourages donations in Owens’ name to the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum’s digital preservation efforts. Arrangements are pending.