After 17 years of being country-free, New York City got some twang back in its radio with 94.7 Nash FM.

The new radio station was launched by Cumulus Media Inc. on Jan. 21 with Randy Houser’s hit song “How Country Feels,” which also happened to be the reigning No. 1 song on the Billboard charts that week.

NYC’s last country station WYNY became WKTU in 1996 when it switched to a pop music format.

The switch hit the country music industry hard, causing a void in marketing and making the music difficult to sell to media buyers based in New York.

The country music genre has recently surged in popularity with hit shows like ABC’s “Nashville” and NBC’s “The Voice,” which features country superstar Blake Shelton as a judge. The genre’s music has also moved closer in style to the pop/rock mainstream hits.

Nash FM has been branded as “The World’s Biggest Country Station” and “Country For Life.” Cumulus has called the station “America’s Country Station” with the hope that the station’s success will help boost the brand in 83 other stations in different cities across the nation.

Despite being the picturesque view of American urbanism, research shows that New York has been in need of a country music station for some time.

According to the New York Times, last year’s Nielsen ratings indicated that more country albums were sold in the New York metropolitan area than anywhere in the United States.

The simple fact is that the area offers a more concentrated cluster of potential listeners than the more traditionally targeted areas in the South and Midwest.

The market here provides almost 16 million potential listeners over the age of 12, according to the Arbitron ratings service.

Building a steady audience in the New York area will not happen overnight, however. Country music enjoys a broad popularity, but the genre has been absent from the area for so long that it might take time to spread.

The first hour of music gave listeners a taste of what exactly the station would play. It featured a range of new hits like Taylor Swift’s “Begin Again” to older classics such as “Friends In Low Places” by Garth Brooks.

Nash FM continued to play country favorites like these with DJ-free air for some time in order to help spread the station’s popularity.

The station also celebrated its takeoff by holding a three-day long country music festival in February dubbed “Nash Bash.”

The concert featured Blake Shelton, Houser, Lady Antebellum, Justin Moore and other famous names in the country music world. It proved to be a great success.

About a month after launching, Nash FM added two on-air personalities to the station: Kelly Ford and Jesse Addy.

Ford comes to the city from a well-established career in Denver to host the morning show from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm.

Addy, on the other hand, is moving up from a local Detroit station to take on the afternoon drive shift from 3:00 pm to 7:00 pm.

Despite the addition of Ford and Addy, the station remains largely focused on simply playing music.

Just like any other radio station, Nash FM is already offering listeners a chance to win tickets to the concerts of some of country music’s favorite stars.

Fans have a chance to win a trip to see Shelton open his new tour in Virginia Beach or to see Eric Church at “Rock the Ocean’s Tortuga Music Festival,” among others.

Nash FM is one of the many radio stations available for iHeart Radio users. Listeners can also tune in live on the station’s website at www.nashfm947.com.