Classic country is a music radio format that specializes in playing mainstream country hits from past decades. This genre generally follows one of two formats: those specializing in hits from the 1920s through the early 1970s, and focus primarily on innovators and artists from country music's Golden Age (including Hank Williams, George Jones and Johnny Cash); and those focusing on hits from the 1960s (including the above-mentioned performers) through early 1990s, some pre-1960 music, latter-day Golden Age stars and innovators such as Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard) to newer recurrent hits from current-day artists such as George Strait, Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson and Reba McEntire.

The format resulted largely from mainstream country radio's now common practice of excluding older "classic" country artists from their playlists when it began appearing on urban and suburban FM radio stations in the late 1980s and early 1990s (despite the fact that artists such as Haggard, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Kenny Rogers and Emmylou Harris were still actively performing and releasing new recordings, some of which were significant hits). When mainstream country radio began this practice in the mid-1990s, a large segment of older country fans felt alienated and turned away from mainstream country. The same practice has seemed to follow to television, where Country Music Television and Great American Country rarely play any music videos produced before 1996, leaving heritage and "classic" artists to networks such as RFD-TV, which features a heavy complement of older programming such as Pop! Goes the Country, Porter Wagoner's programs and Hee Haw, along with newer performances from heritage acts. CMT Pure Country, the all-music counterpart to CMT, relegates its classic country programming to a daily half-hour block known as "Pure Vintage." (Complicating matters somewhat is a relative lack of music videos for country music songs prior to the 1980s.)

Both stereotypes are often unfair and inaccurate. Many younger people have purchased music from and are self-proclaimed fans of classic country artists such as Johnny Cash and Hank Williams (and many younger fans are quick to acknowledge the influence these classic country artists had on many of the newer artists they listen to). Many older listeners to country music do indeed enjoy newer music from artists like Kenny Chesney and Gretchen Wilson as well as the classics. ABC Radio's satellite-delivered Real Country radio format is an example of an approach that combines country oldies dating back to the 1960s with select current and recurrent hits. There are a few artists who cross this dividing line between age groups. Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers (both technically Classic Country artists, as most of their defining hits occurred in the 1960s and '70s for Parton, '70s and early '80s for Rogers) are two such artists, being popular with the young and old alike. Both have continued to receive significant airplay on country music stations, particularly those with broad playlists, to the present day.