RFD-TV Rolling Into D.C.

Rural lifestyle network RFD-TV said its Rural Tractor Brigade has been added to the Presidential Inaugural Parade Friday (Jan. 20).

The network said it had invited tractor manufacturers to participate and had received confirmations from brands including Case IH, Challenger, John Deere, Kioti, Kubota, Mahindra, Massey-Ferguson and New Holland.

A member of the National Future Farmers of America will carry the banner at the lead of the tractor brigade.

“RFD-TV is on a mission to reconnect city with country again,” network president Patrick Gottsch said. "The invitation from the Inaugural Parade to include agriculture in this celebration with tractors going down Pennsylvania Avenue is confirmation that progress is being made."

National Association of Farm Broadcasting president Max Armstrong, Sinclair Broadcasting's Duncan Smith and Gottsch himself are among those driving the tractors, RFD-TV said.

The parade is being carried live, 3-5 p.m., on numerous outlets, including CNN and Fox News Channel.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.