By January 2022, these plans had been scrapped due to the impact of COVID-19, and success of the Yellowstone franchise; leaving it, and Spike holdover Bar Rescue, as the channel's only original, first-run programs.

[6] It originally operated as a joint venture of WSM, Inc., at the time owned by National Life and Accident Insurance Company, and Group W Satellite Communications.

[10] Some of TNN's popular on-air talent included local Nashville media personalities Ralph Emery,[11] Dan Miller, Charlie Chase and Lorianne Crook, as well as established stars such as country music singer Bill Anderson and actresses Florence Henderson and Dinah Shore.

[16] Despite ECW reportedly driving a 200% increase in young male viewership in its timeslot, the promotion had a strained relationship with TNN's management—which had given the program little advertising, among other issues.

In 2001, TNN aired CBS Sports-produced coverage of the inaugural opening round game of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament.

In 2001, TNN added off-network sitcoms and dramas such as Diff'rent Strokes,[21] The Wonder Years,[22] The Rockford Files,[22] WKRP in Cincinnati,[22] Newhart, Hangin' With Mr. Cooper, Miami Vice[22] and Taxi.

By this time, all country-western programming had been purged from the network; some of The Nashville Network's former programming was picked up by CMT, while other classic TNN shows were picked up by Great American Country, including eventually the Grand Ole Opry, which was pushed off to CMT and eventually removed by Viacom after they did not renew the agreement to carry the series.

[30] Most of the new programming would premiere on the originally-planned date as a soft launch, at this time, the TNN name and logo was downplayed heavily in favor of the "First Network for Men" tagline.

[32] Klasky Csupo's Immigrants and the John Leguizamo-produced Zilch & Zero were originally slated to run on Spike TV's animation block,[33] but these plans never materialized and the former was released as a film instead.

In 2005, Viacom conducted research which found that word-of-mouth knowledge narrowly perceived Spike TV's programming as being predominantly "low-brow,” violent, and reliant on sex appeal.

At its upfront presentations in 2006, Viacom unveiled a new logo for the channel (officially shortening its name to "Spike"), and the new slogan "Get More Action.” The new brand was described as being "authentic" and "unapologetically" masculine, and emphasizing action as a core genre of programming for the network.

[55] During Viacom's upfronts presentation that May, it was announced that Spike would undergo a brand repositioning, with a larger focus on reality programming and a broader audience of males in the key demographic.

[36] In 2013, Bellator MMA made its network debut with the premiere of its eighth season; the now Viacom-owned mixed martial arts promotion previously aired on sibling channel MTV2.

[71] The re-branding aimed to make Spike more inclusive to women, emphasizing a focus on "big talent, engaging shows and hits that get people talking" and further expansions into scripted series.

This was part of a restructuring plan by new Viacom CEO Bob Bakish to refocus the majority of its media business around six flagship brands, which included Paramount Pictures, BET, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, the Nick Jr. Channel, and MTV.

[82] Network president Kevin Kay explained that Bakish wanted Viacom to have a "flagship" outlet for scripted programming, as opposed to making inefficient investments into them across individual channels.

He added that Paramount Network's offerings would be distinguished from its competitors by continuing to emphasize Middle America as a key viewer base.

Even with its subsequent rebrandings, Paramount Network still had significant carriage strength and viewership in the Midwest and South due to its heritage as TNN.

[83] The series would eventually air on Paramount Network in October 2018 in an edited form, with two episodes dropped due to the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

The campaign included a Times Square advertisement asking viewers to phone and email Paramount Network's chief marketing officer Niels Schuurmans to protest Spike's "firing,” as well as a string of self-deprecating posts by the network's Twitter account about its history and programming (including that "My favorite number is 329 because it's the number of times Cops is on every night,” "We had a show called The Joe Schmo Show.

[87][88] The campaign concluded with a live streaming event on January 17, 2018, where users could vote on various ways a crew would deface a large model of the former Spike logo, culminating in its demolition.

[91] The Spike trademark remains in active use as a series of channels on Paramount Global's Pluto TV mainly carrying action and reality content.

[92] In early 2020, Paramount Network began to cut back on scripted series development, having dropped upcoming projects such as Emily in Paris (which was subsequently picked up by Netflix), and cancelling 68 Whiskey after a single season.

[93] These changes would have mirrored a similar shift in programming that McCarthy undertook at sister channel Comedy Central, which also dropped live-action series development in favor of original specials, films, and adult animation.

[93] At least one scripted series or miniseries was to be carried per-quarter, such as Yellowstone (albeit with episodes premiering in a different format to suit a cinematic presentation), but the channel was to abandon non-scripted programming.

[93] In preparation for the relaunch, it was stated that Bar Rescue and Lip Sync Battle would move to another ViacomCBS channel to be determined, while Ink Master and Wife Swap were both cancelled.

[101][102][103] In January 2022, Deadline reported that the network relaunch had been shelved, partly due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on television and film production, in addition to Yellowstone's ratings success—which had been influenced by the acquisition of streaming rights to the series by NBCUniversal's Peacock.

[104][105] Paramount Network's current programming consists primarily of reruns of sitcoms and drama series, as well as airings of feature films.

The CAB felt that its new general entertainment format would unduly compete with various Canadian-run specialty channels, arguing that there was overlap in its niche and its then-current schedule with Men TV (men's lifestyle), Space (Star Trek), sports channels such as TheScore (WWE), Discovery Health (interstitial segments focusing on men's health, although the network did not air any full-length programs on the topic and mainly focused on generic women's and children's health and pregnancy-related programming at the time), along with the inexplicable naming of Report on Business Television and CTV Travel for reasons unknown.

[109] In January 2005, the CRTC dismissed the CAB's complaint, ruling that it provided insufficient evidence that Spike was directly competing with Canadian specialty channels.