Keith Urban is expanding his television hosting resume yet again. CBS announced that the country star will co-host and headline New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash on December 31. Urban will be joined by returning co-host Rachel Smith of Entertainment Tonight, while Kane Brown and Jelly Roll will also perform alongside the musician. The special will run on CBS and Paramount+ from 8 pm to 10 pm ET, and back at 10:30 pm until 1:30 am ET.
This is hardly Urban’s first foray into televised hosting duties. Reality fans may recall that Urban was one of the original hosts during the first season of the Australian version of The Voice in 2011, beside Joel Madden, Seal, and Delta Goodrem. Urban then took root in Los Angeles in 2012 to appear as a judge on American Idol, replacing Steven Perry to join the panel with Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, and Nicki Minaj for season 12. He remained on the panel for seasons 13, 14, and 15. In the years after, he sporadically returned to The Voice Australia.
Urban is currently coming off the release of his twelfth studio album, High, which came out on September 24 of this year. The album topped the country charts in his native Australia, and made it to number three on the overall album chart. The album has been supported with four singles: “Straight Line,” “Messed Up As Me,” “Go Home W U” and “Wildside.” “Straight Line” was a hit on the country charts in both Australia and the United Kingdom.
If that wasn’t enough, Urban is also planning a tour and a few special performances in the upcoming months, beyond his New Year’s Eve Live hosting. This fall, Urban will be doing his third Las Vegas residency since 2019, which he called “a great laboratory for me to see what works” during a conversation with Variety last month. It sounds like fans will be able to see what he’s been cooking in that lab when he takes the stage in Nashville on New Year’s.
