Here is the first time in the history of the Grand Ole Opry that it was telecast live on a weekly basis, beginning Saturday night, April 13, 1985. I happened to be in the audience for that very first night and was there many Saturday nights, as I spent a lot of weekends at the Opry during the 80's and 90's, and this show telecast live at 7 pm in the beginning. By the end of the eighties, the show time was moved to 7:30 and an interview segment was added to the show beginning at 7 pm. The entire cast of the Opry was given a slot on the live show and you saw different ones each week rotated, but by the end of the nineties, the owners of the show decided to go more uptown with the show, and more and more of the unknown names were placed on the televised segments, the announcers who were staples on the show were let go, and New York came in to take over the production of the program. The stage set was redesigned in 2002 and the Opry continues to be telecast to this day, only the interview segment of the live Opry show was discontinued and the stage show now runs for one hour. If you want to witness history as it happens at the Opry, watch the televised segment of the Opry. But if you want to see a real Opry show, go and see what the televised segment no longer shows, especially in the winter. The televised segment no longer represents truly what is regular on the Grand Ole Opry anymore.
Sadly, I must state, after over thirty years as a fan and also an employee in the eighties, that this show is not as good as it once was. I give it three stars.
