Antenna TV is an American digital broadcast television network, primarily featuring classic television series from the 1950s to the 1990s, along with some feature films. Most programming comes from the Sony Pictures Entertainment library. In the Fall of 2011, Antenna TV added a few shows from the Universal Studios library after those shows fell off RTV's schedule. It is owned by Tribune Broadcasting, a division of the Chicago-based Tribune Company. The network appears in several markets via digital subchannels of over-the-air broadcast television stations, and is available on select cable systems. The network broadcasts 24 hours a day in 480i standard definition.

Background[link]

Tribune Broadcasting announced the formation of Antenna TV on August 30, 2010, with a planned launch in January 2011;^[1] originally the network was intended to launch on January 3, 2011, though the launch date was later moved two days earlier.^[2]

Antenna TV launched on January 1, 2011, at midnight ET (December 31, 2010 in other U.S. time zones), initially debuting on 17 Tribune-owned stations and 13 stations owned by Local TV, LLC;^[3][4][5] the first program to air on the network was the Three Stooges short "Woman Haters" as part of a marathon of Three Stooges short films. Antenna TV's operations are overseen by Sean Compton, who serves as the president of programming for parent company Tribune Broadcasting.

On October 1, 2011, Antenna TV introduced block scheduling for most of its programs, organized by genre and the decade of original broadcast; it included a weekday afternoon block of sitcoms from the 1950s, a weekend afternoon block of 1960s sitcoms (including the early 1970s sitcom, The Partridge Family), a Saturday night lineup of drama series (a genre of television programs which had previously aired on the network in very limited form on Sunday mornings only), an overnight block of classic television series from the black-and-white era of the 1950s and early 1960s, a Sunday primetime lineup of sitcoms from the 1990s and a weeknight primetime lineup of comedies from the 1970s^[6]; with the exception of the black-and-white program block (which was reduced to once a week and moved to Friday nights) and the Saturday night drama block (which was reduced to Saturday evenings only), most of these blocks were dropped on March 26, 2012.^[7]

Programming[link]

Antenna TV's program schedule relies on the extensive library of films and TV programming currently owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, which comprises more than 270 television series and over 4,000 films. The network does not air a split-screen credit sequence or feature voiceovers promoting upcoming network programming during the closing credits (borrowing a format common in local broadcast syndication), nor does it display an Antenna TV logo bug during its programs, although affiliates are inclined to display their own on-screen logo bug during Antenna TV programming if they choose to do so.^[8]

As is common with digital multicast networks, advertisements featured during commercial breaks on Antenna TV primarily consist of direct response advertisements for products featured in infomercials and particularly during its Saturday morning children's programming, public service announcements; satellite provider Dish Network and insurance company Progressive are currently the network's primary national sponsors. The network's primary continuity announcer is disc jockey and voice actor Gary Owens of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In fame, who has been with the network since its launch; voice actor John B. Wells, also co-host of Premiere Networks' syndicated radio program Coast to Coast AM, has served a secondary continuity announcer for Antenna TV since November 2011.

Classic television series[link]

Antenna TV has program licensing agreements with Sony Pictures Entertainment (which includes series produced by Screen Gems, Columbia Pictures Television, TriStar Television, Columbia TriStar Television, ELP Communications (including predecessors T.A.T., Embassy Communications and Tandem Licensing Corporation) and DLT Entertainment; the network also shares broadcast rights to classic television programs from the NBCUniversal Television Distribution library with competing digital broadcast network Weigel Broadcasting-owned Me-TV, which holds primary broadcast rights. In addition, Antenna TV also airs WKRP in Cincinnati, which is part of the 20th Television library (Me-TV also holds primary rights to classic television series from 20th Television's program library).

The network's series programming covers mostly sitcoms from the 1950s to the 1990s and includes shows such as The Partridge Family, Three's Company, Too Close for Comfort, Married... with Children, McHale's Navy, Sanford and Son, Burns and Allen, The Monkees, Here Come the Brides, Leave It to Beaver and The Three Stooges (unlike with cable channel AMC and IFC, who has run The Three Stooges from 1998 to 2004 and again since 2009, Antenna TV airs each of the shorts, which each air in roughly twenty-minute blocks, uninterrupted with commercial breaks inserted only between shorts; although Three Stooges films that air as part of the Antenna TV Theater block are aired with commercial interruption); while several series on the network have been widely syndicated on other television outlets in the United States and abroad, some series featured on the channel (such as Hazel, Bachelor Father and Father Knows Best) have not been seen on television for several years.

Drama series, which occupied a limited amount of the network's schedule for the first few months on the air, have expanded with an October 2011 programming realignment, with crime drama, mystery and suspense programs airing in an evening block on Saturdays, which includes It Takes a Thief, Adam-12, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, S.W.A.T. and Suspense Theater; some of these programs are also aired during the week in limited form during the late afternoon and overnight hours. In a rarity for television, Antenna TV rotates a television series and its spinoffs on its schedule in the same hour, such as airing the shorter-lived spinoffs of Three's Company (The Ropers and Three's a Crowd) with the parent show airing alongside either once they debut on the schedule.^[9]

Movies[link]

As of March 26, 2012, Antenna TV broadcasts feature films Monday-Fridays from 3 a.m.-11 a.m. ET, weekend mornings from 5-7 a.m. and Sunday afternoons from 1-5 p.m. ET (sometimes starting earlier or ending later depending on the length of the films), branded under the title of Antenna TV Theater.^[5] In addition to access to television series owned by Sony Pictures Television, the agreement with Sony Pictures Entertainment also includes access to movies from the film library of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group (including Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Sony Pictures Classics, Screen Gems, Triumph Films, and the TV rights to the Embassy Pictures library). The film roster does not concentrate on films from any specific era, meaning any film from the 1930s to the 1990s can be featured on the network's schedule.

Children's programming[link]

Antenna TV also airs six hours of programming aimed at children on Saturday mornings, featuring shows such as Heads Up!, Critter Gitters, Young America Outdoors, and Curiosity Quest, which make up the FCC-required amount of educational children's programming each week.

Affiliates[link]

Tribune planned to launch Antenna TV in all markets served by a station owned by Tribune Broadcasting, as well as on stations owned by Local TV LLC as part of that group's co-management agreement with Tribune.^[10] Tribune's flagship station WGN-TV serves as the de facto flagship affiliate of the network. In the Denver and St. Louis markets, where both companies own stations, the network airs on the digital subchannels of Local TV's Fox affiliates KDVR and KTVI, rather than on Tribune-owned CW affiliates KWGN and KPLR in order to address bandwidth concerns^{[citation needed]} as Fox stations transmit their main signals by default in 720p, which allows plenty of room for a subchannel, while CW stations are usually 1080i on their main channel.

However, not all of the charter affiliates of the network added Antenna TV programming on their digital signals on the network's launch date. Salt Lake City Fox affiliate KSTU and Des Moines NBC affiliate WHO-TV (owned by Local TV) and Washington, D.C. CW affiliate WDCW (owned by Tribune) debuted the channel on their digital subchannels later in the month of January; while Oklahoma City NBC affiliate KFOR-TV did not carry the network until April 21, 2011 on a new third digital subchannel. The final Tribune/Local station to add the network was in Fort Smith, Arkansas on January 5, 2012 where the network is used as a overnight secondary service on KXNW, a MyNetworkTV affiliate which compliments sister CBS affiliate KFSM-TV; Antenna TV was unable to launch in the market before the KNXW purchase due to existing syndicated programming rights on their DT2 MyNetworkTV subchannel (which now acts as a KNXW simulcast) and a 1080i signal which precluded a launch of a DT3 subchannel without affecting picture quality.

The network is being offered to would-be affiliates on a barter basis, an agreement in which the station will get the programming at little or no cost in exchange for giving a certain amount of commercial time to the network. Despite this barter offer, some large television markets without stations owned by Tribune or Local TV, LLC have yet to acquire the network. Some affiliates such as KTLA aired previews of Antenna TV prior to the launch date on their primary channel.^[11] In the wake of Universal Sports being discontinued on broadcast television on January 1, 2012, most of these stations have signed affiliation agreements with Antenna (or Me-TV) as a replacement service.

Not every program on the Antenna TV lineup airs in certain local markets; as an example, in the Los Angeles market, KTLA's Antenna TV subchannel replaces the hour-long block of Married... with Children (which airs at 7 p.m. local time, in an earlier time slot than but airing simultaneously as the remainder of the country as Antenna TV operates only on an Eastern Time Zone schedule), with a rebroadcast of that station's weeknight 6 p.m. newscast due to rights held by another local outlet (in this case, currently, independent station KDOC-TV has to the local rights to the sitcom), though it is only affected Monday through Thursdays. Since the sitcom Soap was added to lineup in May 2011, the Sunday night rebroadcast of KTLA's early evening newscast was removed, and Soap was cleared to air locally.

There are also cases where Antenna TV affiliates have switch stations. In Honolulu, KUPU was the primary over-the-air affiliate, airing on 56.1, but because its not available on cable systems in Hawaii, it was moved to the subchannel of NBC affiliate KHNL, which can be seen on cable.

See also[link]

Television portal

• Retro Television Network, a competing digital broadcast network owned by Luken Communications specializing in classic TV series from the 1950s to the 1970s.
• Me-TV, a competing digital broadcast network owned by Weigel Broadcasting specializing in classic TV series from the 1960s to the 1980s.
• This TV, a digital broadcast network owned by MGM and Weigel Broadcasting specializing in feature films with limited classic TV programming.
• Bounce TV, a digital broadcast network with similarly styled retro programming specifically targeting black audiences and households.

References[link]

Notes

External links[link]

• Official website

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