The Grand Ole Opry Is More Than A Show
What filmmakers can learn from a century-old media property that turned one live broadcast into a family entertainment ecosystem.
I simply thought we were going to a concert, not a case study in family entertainment.
We were in Nashville for a family trip built around soccer, sightseeing and a few memorable entertainment experiences. Visiting the Grand Ole Opry felt like one of those things we should do while we were there. I expected good music, rich history, and talented performers.
I didn’t expect a master class in media, intellectual property and show business.
The experience was first class from the moment we arrived.
The building is impressive. The staff was polished, well-prepared, and kind. We were handed a multipage program as we were escorted to our seats. The merchandise store was filled with high-quality, customized licensed collectibles, not kitschy concert souvenirs.
Inside the theater, sophisticated LED lighting surrounded a modern stage. Large digital screens gave everyone a clear view of the performers. Cameras captured the action. The production moved smoothly from one artist to another. The emcee confidently carried the audience through the show while also delivering sponsor messages and speaking to people who were not in the room.
That was when it hit me. We were not simply attending a concert. We were sitting inside the longest running live radio program in the United States, a video production, a branded visitor experience, an advertising platform and a commercial ecosystem—all operating at the same time.
A radio show that became a destination
That realization meant something more to me because I spent five years working in radio.
Radio teaches you to think differently about an audience. You may be sitting inside a small studio, but you are always speaking to people you cannot see. You learn how to communicate with the person in front of you while remembering the thousands of people listening somewhere else.
That is precisely what the Opry host was doing.
The audience inside the theater mattered, but it was only one part of the audience. The show was also being presented for radio listeners and captured for video distribution. The Grand Ole Opry still airs live on WSM, its radio home since 1925, while Opry Live is distributed through the Opry’s digital channels and streaming partners.
The roots of that model stretch back more than a century.
WSM began broadcasting in 1925 as a radio station created by the National Life and Accident Insurance Company. Its call letters came from the company’s slogan, “We Shield Millions.” The program that became the Grand Ole Opry began later that year and grew from a radio show into one of the most enduring brands in American entertainment.
That history offers the first important lesson.
The Opry did not begin as a building. It began as content. The physical destination came later.
The current Grand Ole Opry House provided the show with more room and the production infrastructure necessary to evolve beyond its original radio format. The program was first televised live from the building in 1978 and began regular television broadcasts several years later. The theater did not replace the radio show. It expanded what the radio show could become. That matters.
A familiar lesson from baseball
The experience reminded me of my years working for the St. Louis Cardinals.
I joined the Cardinals in part to help the organization build a new ballpark and pursue the related real estate development that eventually became Ballpark Village.
At the time, the concept was unusual within Major League Baseball. The idea was that a sports organization should not think only about the revenue generated inside the stadium. A successful franchise creates economic activity all around the event. Fans arrive early. They stay late. They eat, drink, shop, gather and look for ways to extend the experience.
Why should the team’s participation end at the stadium gate?
Ballpark Village was designed to build on the emotional and economic power of the Cardinals brand. It turned adjacent real estate into restaurants, entertainment venues, offices, residential space and year-round gathering places.
Today, similar developments surround many professional sports venues. What once seemed novel has increasingly become standard operating practice. Like Walt Disney, the Opry understood a version of that idea decades earlier.
The show helped create a destination known as Opryland. The Grand Ole Opry House became part of a larger entertainment and hospitality environment that included the former Opryland USA theme park and the Gaylord Opryland Resort.
I stayed at the resort for one of Major League Baseball’s Winter Meetings. It is impressive. It felt like we were in an enclosed city – a spaceship traveling who knows where – with all the amenities you needed to stay focused on what brought you there.
The ownership structure has changed over time, but the connections remain meaningful. Ryman Hospitality Properties owns a controlling interest in Opry Entertainment Group, whose brands include the Grand Ole Opry, WSM and the Ryman Auditorium.
The company also owns the Gaylord Opryland Resort, which Marriott manages. Opry Mills now operates as a Simon property on the former theme-park site.
The strategic principle is the same one that has reshaped professional sports.
A compelling entertainment property can become the center of gravity for a much larger economic ecosystem. The event draws the audience. The destination creates more ways to serve that audience.
In the context of what we experienced, the entertainment creators created community. A destination, a part of town that helps fuel the impressive growth of Nashville. It really is music city – a living embodiment of the creator economy at work.
One show, many products
What impressed me most was how naturally all the pieces fit together.
Nothing felt forced.
The printed program enhanced the experience while also creating space for advertising. The sponsor messages were incorporated into the show without stopping it cold. The merchandise extended the brand into something guests could take home. The production technology served the people in the theater while also making the performances suitable for distribution through other media.
I also noted that unlike many other performance venues, the use of cell phones to capture the experience was encouraged, not prevented. I see that as smart in an era where more media is created by the masses than by mass media.
They have embraced audience participation in a way others are still catching up with.
It is clear that one show supported many products:
- The ticket.
- The radio broadcast.
- The video program.
- The advertising inventory.
- The sponsorship platform.
- The printed program.
- The merchandise.
- The tours.
- The hospitality experience.
- The private-event business.
- The direct relationship with fans.
The Opry was not merely selling seats. It was developing every reasonable expression of value around the experience. That is not exploitation in the negative sense of the word. It is the disciplined economic use of a creative asset. There is
an important difference.
When done well, the additional products do not cheapen the core experience. They reinforce it. The program makes the guest feel welcomed. The video screens help people see. The merchandise preserves the memory. The hotel and surrounding attractions make the trip more convenient and memorable.
Each layer adds value because the underlying experience remains strong.
That is the part many filmmakers overlook. We become so focused on finishing the film that we fail to think deeply enough about everything that can grow from it.
Country music understands story
The connection to filmmaking goes beyond the business model. Country music is built around storytelling. The strongest songs introduce characters, establish conflict and create an emotional journey in only a few minutes. They give us a sense of place. They allow us to recognize ourselves in someone else’s experience.
A good country song operates like a short film without pictures.
During the Opry performance we attended, one of the younger musicians introduced a song inspired by a Bible verse. That caught my attention because it connected directly to the subject of my previous Media Lens article.
The Bible itself may provide source material that is in the public domain. But a songwriter who draws inspiration from that source and creates original lyrics and music has created something new. The source may be available to everyone.
The song is not.
The musical composition can carry its own copyright. A particular sound recording of that song is treated as a separate work. Film or video of the performance creates another piece of media that may involve additional rights and contractual permissions. The U.S. Copyright Office expressly distinguishes the underlying musical composition from a particular sound recording of that composition.
This is where the layers become important. There may be a source idea. Then a song. Then an arrangement. Then a recorded performance. Then video of that performance. Then a broadcast. Then branded content built around it.
You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?
The Opry is not simply presenting intellectual property. It is creating, capturing, packaging and distributing new layers of intellectual property every night.
Creating value is not the same as sharing in it
The music industry also offers a warning. Its history is filled with artists who created enormous value but did not share fairly in the economic benefits. Sometimes they lacked leverage. Sometimes they did not understand the agreements.
Sometimes credit and ownership were never clearly established. Sometimes the people controlling the business understood the value of the rights better than the people creating the work.
That tension sits at the heart of Johnnie Be Good, the documentary STORYSMART recently joined as a finish-line producing partner.
Johnnie Johnson was a piano player and bandleader who hired a young Chuck Berry to join his group. Together, they helped create some of the foundational music of rock and roll.
Berry became the famous front man. He received the songwriting credit and much of the economic reward. Johnnie remained largely unknown for decades. Later in life, the two became involved in litigation over Johnnie’s claimed contributions to songs credited to Berry.
I do not raise that history to retry the case or reduce a complicated creative relationship to a few sentences. I raise it because the story illustrates an essential principle.
Creating value does not automatically mean owning it. Contributing to a work does not automatically produce credit.
Being present during the creative process does not automatically establish financial participation.
Those issues are shaped by evidence, copyright law, contracts, registrations, negotiating leverage and the conduct of the parties. The smart time to discuss ownership, credit and participation is at the beginning—when people are excited about working together and before success makes the conversation harder. That is part of navigating show business intelligently. It is also part of treating creators fairly.
The lesson for filmmakers
Independent filmmakers often think in terms of one finished product. Complete the film. Find a distributor. Sell it. Move on to the next one.
The Opry suggests a more durable model that aligns so perfectly with what I see as being STORYSMART®. Start with a compelling core experience. Protect the rights that make it possible. Capture the work at a professional level. Build a direct relationship with the audience. Develop multiple formats and channels. Create products and experiences that reinforce the central brand. Preserve enough ownership and control to participate in the value created over time.
That does not mean every film needs a theme park, hotel or merchandise store. It means the film should not necessarily be viewed as the end of the process.
A documentary can lead to a limited series, podcast, book, educational program, speaking platform, live event, archive, licensing opportunity or narrative adaptation.
A family story can become a legacy asset. A creator’s body of work can become a catalog. An audience can become a community.
This is one reason STORYSMART approaches true-story intellectual property through a broader sequence: Preserve. Develop. Produce. Distribute. Each step creates value. Each step also requires thoughtful decisions about ownership, permissions, credit, compensation and control.
The show is the beginning. I walked into the Grand Ole Opry expecting music. I left thinking about radio, film, sports, real estate, sponsorship, licensing, copyright and audience development.
That is what made the experience so impressive.
It also – truth be told – reminded me how much I enjoy country music despite not labeling myself a country music fan.
The experience took me back in time through my childhood to now. I walked out of the venerable concert hall with important insights that I hope will shape our future.
The Opry has preserved its identity while adapting to every major change in media. It began as a radio program. It became a live destination. It expanded into television and digital video. It built relationships with sponsors, tourists, artists and generations of fans.
Yet the heart of the experience remains remarkably simple. A performer steps onto a stage and tells a story through a song. Everything else grows from that moment.
The Grand Ole Opry understood long ago what many filmmakers are still learning today:
The show is not necessarily the final product. Properly protected, professionally produced and intelligently shared, it can be the beginning of everything that follows.
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About Ron Watermon
Ron Watermon is a creator, builder, media entrepreneur, filmmaker, and the founder of STORYSMART. He writes about professional storytelling, media entrepreneurship, filmmaking, and the business of turning stories into valuable assets.
Ron is the author of STORYSMART Storytelling for ALL and is currently building STORYSMART STUDIOS, an independent media company dedicated to developing, producing, and owning profitable, enduring original media properties.
About Our STORYSMART® Perspective
At STORYSMART, we approach storytelling, filmmaking, and media development as a long-term, rights-first business rather than a project-by-project creative exercise.
Our focus is on understanding how stories create value over time through ownership, disciplined development, audience relationships, and thoughtful risk management.
The articles, commentary, and educational materials published here are intended to contribute to broader conversations about storytelling, media, and intellectual property. They are provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or financial advice.
Nothing contained in this publication is intended to promote or solicit investment in any specific project, company, or security. Any discussions regarding potential business or investment opportunities are conducted separately and, where applicable, pursuant to appropriate agreements and offering materials.
