Rose Gottsch was watching the National High School Finals Rodeo competition when she turned to her dad Patrick and asked why there wasn’t a cowgirl channel.
The elder Gottsch was in a unique position to answer his daughter, who is now 9 years old.
Patrick is patriarch of the Gottsch family and founder of the Rural Media Group. The multimedia company promotes rural, ranching and rodeo programming with offerings like RFD-TV, The Cowboy Channel and Rural Radio.
“Thanks to Rose, pointing out the obvious, now there’s the Cowgirl Channel,” he said on a stage in front of the company’s studios in the Stockyards.
With a crowd seated on the front lawn and others standing along East Exchange Avenue, 12-year-old Sofia Luttrull, sang a set of country classics, ahead of the celebration’s live broadcast.
Noting that the first of March is also the beginning of Women’s History Month, Mayor Mattie Parker declared March 1, 2023, as The Cowgirl Channel Day in Fort Worth.
In a short speech, Parker said that the network’s genesis provides an important lesson.
“When a young woman says ‘I have a good idea,’ you listen and then you implement it,” she said. “Their ideas matter and, with the right gumption behind them, this can happen. How special is that?”
For Parker, the women’s rodeo, lifestyle and other original programming that will be broadcast on this channel offers a needed counter to current offerings on other networks.
“In an age where oftentimes women are relegated to silliness – there’s an entire network (named) Bravo that focuses on women fighting with one another and what kind of purse they can buy – this channel will be different. This channel is about women doing hard work and the Western heritage that put Texas and cities like Fort Worth on the map. And for that, I’m incredibly grateful and so proud to stand up here today and celebrate,” she said.
The channel will air women’s rodeo sports and lifestyle programming for “the modern cowgirl” 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Signature shows include “FarmHer,” “RanchHer,” “Women’s Western Sports Roundup” and others.
Jimmie Munroe, rodeo legend and president of the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association, attended the event and watched 12-year-old Luttrull’s performance in awe.
“It’s just so exciting to see what’s happening now with the Cowgirl Channel and what it can do for the women in the sport of professional rodeo,” Munroe said. “To have a channel that’s designed just to highlight and showcase the women and to tell their stories is really exciting.”
RFD -TV was launched 22 years ago, and The Cowboy Channel made its debut in 2017.
Pam Minick hosts “The American Rancher” on the flagship channel and emceed the event.
“When he (Patrick) first told me that he wanted to launch the Cowgirl Channel, I thought it was a lofty goal for Mr. Gottsch – especially when he told me that in November and said he wanted to launch it this spring,” she told the crowd. “But after 22 years of working with him, I knew not to doubt his vision, his passion or his ambition.”
Shows like Minick’s and others highlighting cowgirls have always been important to the Rural Media Group, Gottsch said.
“To me, this kind of wraps up the package of what we started … Serving rural America, serving agriculture, serving farmers and ranchers, the Western way of life, preserving rural heritage between these three channels, RFD-TV, The Cowboy Channel and The Cowgirl Channel,” he said. “As long as we can keep it on the air – which we will – it’s here to stay.”
He credited his daughters for inspiring him throughout their lives.
The oldest Gottsch daughters, Gatsby and Raquel, demurred when offered the chance to to speak from the stage, but their younger sister Rose took the opportunity to share a simple message, “Girls rule. Boys drool.”
Marcheta Fornoff covers the arts for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at marcheta.fornoff@fortworthreport.org or on Twitter. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.