Saturday Night Country is a weekly Australian country musicradio program. It is produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and broadcast from 9:05 pm (Australian Eastern Time) on Saturday nights. The current host is the country singer Beccy Cole.
Nutting has explained that the program was launched during a period when the ABC was experiencing criticism for being too city-centric. He suggested a two-hour national country music program be broadcast from 4QN, the regional ABC station in Townsville, as a way to counteract accusations of the ABC focusing too much on capital cities. Nutting described the program's late Saturday night timeslot as a "bit of a dead spot" but the show quickly attracted a large following and was extended to a four-hour program.[4]
Saturday Night Country broadcasts on regional ABC Local Radio stations and digital station ABC Country. The first hour of the show also commenced airing on ABC Local stations in state capital cities from 3 February 2024. The program is also streamed on the show's website.[5]
Until January 2017, Saturday Night Country was also broadcast on the ABC's metropolitan AM radio stations in state capital cities, but in late 2016 the ABC decided to replace the AM program in those markets with a Saturday night edition of Nightlife.[6][7]
The entire Saturday Night Country show continues to be available to listeners in the major metropolitan markets via ABC Country on DAB digital radio and on the ABC’s online streaming platforms. On 3 February 2024 the first hour of SNC re-commenced airing on the ABC's metropolitan AM and DAB stations.
After 500 shows and more than 2,000 hours of programming, Felicity Urquhart signed off as host of Saturday Night Country. Her last show was on 26 December 2020.[citation needed]
During January 2021, the ABC announced that Beccy Cole would host the show.[citation needed] Her inaugural appearance as host was on 13 February 2021 and her first feature guest was Adam Harvey. Cole is based in Adelaide and broadcasts from the ABC's Collinswood studios in her home city. The new Cole-hosted show initially ran for three hours but on 10 February 2024 the program duration was reduced to two hours. It started at 10:05 pm on Saturdays. This was a one hour reduction from the previous four-hour show. On 3 February 2024 the show commenced airing 1 hour earlier, at 9:05 pm Australian South-Eastern Time (NSW, Vic & Tas) on Saturdays, earlier in central, western and northern markets.
After the program's December 2021 - January 2022 summer hiatus, the live program resumed during February 2022 but without Beccy Cole hosting. Amber Lawrence was the program's temporary host until Cole resumed on 30 April 2022.
