The Nashville Network made it debut in March 1983 with a five-hour marathon of country music performances. The beginning of the broadcast originated in the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tennessee. The Nashville Network, abbreviated TNN, wanted to provide a station for country music listeners. While a niche market in urban locations in the Northeast, TNN found popularity among more than 7 million viewers in its first night and gained momentum over the next several months. However, CMT also competed for country fans, and TNN sought to add more variety to its lineup to distinguish itself. Despite TNN's attempts to dominate the country market, the network changed owners several times in the 1980s and 1990s.
The Nashville Network's lineup became so diverse that it lost much of the country-themed programs that helped to make it popular in the early 1980s. The Nashville Network was renamed The National Network in 2000 under Viacom, though it retained its TNN abbreviation. Viacom owned both CMT and TNN and didn't want competition between its subsidiaries. So TNN shifted its focus away from country and toward wrestling. The WWE was also owned by Viacom, and TNN provided an outlet for wrestling fans. This change regained some of TNN's male audience, but change was not as drastic as the network's owner had hoped. The TNN initials were attributed to slow popularity because they were still associated with a lagging country-style channel.
The National Network changed its name to Spike TV in June 2003. The name capitalized on the male audience that WWE attracted during TNN's reign. The network's president wanted to focus specifically on the 18- to 34-year-old male population because that demographic watched the least amount of TV. Many channels avoided the young male audience, and Spike TV saw the niche market as an untapped resource.