The Gospel Music Network was a commercial Christian cable television station which launched in 1986 by Bill and Linda Airy. At the time, the Airy's owned a full-service advertising agency in Albuquerque, New Mexico. One of the agency's clients was Pepsi-Cola Bottling Group. In 1986, Pepsi-Cola was interested in reaching an African-American audience for its Mountain Dew product. Research indicated that gospel music was a possible area for Mountain Dew sponsorship. With no gospel music programming available nationwide on any existing network, the Airy's decided to launch a channel and Gospel Music Network (GMN) was born. A guiding tenet was that GMN would never ask for donations on-air but would rely on advertising sponsorships and license fees from distributors.