Gospel Country

Gospel Country is a syndicated weekly countdown show of Christian Country music, based on the charts published in Christian Music Weekly.

A one year start as Joyful Country began in 1984, at Newmarket Ontario station CKAN. While mainstream country was in a major ascent, host Rob Green found access to contemporary Christian Country music to be difficult and attitudes among both CCM industry folk and southern gospel industry folk to be both negative and inflexible.

Recognizing the growing trend in mainstream country radio, and the lack of a country Christian radio show for all those stations, Rob Green syndicated County Line in October 1988. Hosted using the pseudonym of Les Roberts (as Rob was also syndicating Joyful Sounds under his own name), the program grew and had at least some influence in the rise of Christian Country as a viable radio format in the 1990s.

In 1995 a failing Gospel Country program was turned over to Green, he merged County Line into it, and in 1996, the format of the show was turned into a weekly countdown show of 60 minutes.

As a commercial success, the program did well for 100,000w FM stations in Edmonton AB, Atlanta GA and Cornwall ON often helping the station to beat the competition in the ratings for the timeslot.