Contact: Jim Weiss, Gospel Music Channel, 770-692-4579 jim@gospelmusicchannel.com

ATLANTA, Jan. 3 /Christian Newswire/ -- Bill Gaither, one of the most successful and most honored artists in the history of Christian music, will have a weekly home on the Gospel Music Channel when Gaither Homecoming, which brings together gospel music legends with today's new artists, makes its Gospel Music Channel premiere on January 7, 2008, it was announced today.

The majority of the Gaither Homecoming series will feature performances from the sell-out and legendary "Gaither Homecoming" annual concert tours that have drawn millions of fans. The series will also include occasional Gaither-produced specials such as "He Touched Me: The Gospel Music of Elvis Presley" and "The Gospel Music of Johnny Cash." Each Gaither Homecoming episode will premiere on GMC Monday nights at 8:00 pm ET/PT with encores Tuesdays (6am, 10am), Saturdays (1pm) and Sundays (2pm) ET.

"Bill Gaither is one of the founding fathers of Gospel and Christian music and it is more than appropriate that he has a weekly home on Gospel Music Channel," commented GMC founder and president Charles Humbard.

Bill Gaither began to sing and write when he was an English teacher in his home town of Alexandria, Indiana. He started his first group, The Bill Gaither Trio, in 1956. He and his wife Gloria (whom he married in 1962) began performing together full time in 1967. The Gaither Vocal Band was birthed in the early 1980s and was rebirth in 1991. The very first Gaither Homecoming was barely planned and mostly improvised. In 1991, the Gaither Vocal Band had just wrapped up a recording session in a Nashville, Tennessee studio, working on an album which featured many of the great voices of Southern Gospel music. After the session, the artists stayed around to chat, swap stories and sing old standards around the piano. Gaither recorded the impromptu session and later published it. The recording was so well received that Gaither began a series with larger gatherings of gospel musicians. In 2004, the Gaither Homecoming concert tour ranked 16th in Pollstar rankings of all tours, beating out pop music heavyweights such as Elton John, Fleetwood Mac and Rod Stewart.

In more than thirty years as a composer, songwriter, and producer, Gaither has received four Grammys, twenty Dove awards, and the first Gold Record ever awarded to an inspirational album. Inducted into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame in 1982, Bill was recently honored by ASCAP as Christian Songwriter of the Century.

Gospel Music Channel is the nation's first and only 24/7 all music television network devoted to the uplifting, inspiring and diverse music that is gospel/Christian music. It is one of the fastest-growing cable channels in television today; the network has more-than-doubled availability in 2007 alone and is now carried in all ten of the top ten markets and 23 of the top 25. Gospel Music Channel can be seen on various cable systems around the country.