'Nashville' resurrected by CMT

It turns out Nashville hasn't had its swan song quite yet. 

CMT officially picked up the former ABC drama for a brand new season on Friday, confirming weeks-long rumors that the network was in talks with ABC Studios and Lionsgate to bring the series back following its cancellation. 

In addition to the news about the new season, CMT said an agreement has been struck with Hulu to bring new episodes to the service the day after they air on CMT. 

The good news, however, doesn't answer all questions, as the list of returning cast members was not announced, presumably due to contract negotiations. 

“CMT heard the fans. The wave of love and appreciation they have unleashed for ‘Nashville’ has been overwhelming,” Brian Philips, president of CMT, said in a statement. “Nashville is a perfect addition to our evolving line-up of big music specials, documentaries, and original series. We see our fans and ourselves in this show and we will treasure it like no other network. Nashville belongs on CMT.”

Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz (the creators of Thirtysomething) have been brought on as new showrunners for the series, which closed out its run on ABC with a major cliffhanger that left the fate of Hayden Panettiere's Juliette in question. 

The cliffhanger, it was said, was put in place to make the cancelled series more appealing to other potential networks. 

“We always had faith that we would find a way to bring Nashville back to its devoted fans, and we’re very proud to be in partnership with CMT and Hulu to extend the life of this series,” added Patrick Moran, executive vice president of ABC Studios.

During its last season on ABC, Nashville averaged 8 million weekly viewers across platforms. 

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