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In one of its first moves as it is emerging from bankruptcy, MGM is making a play in the digital world, teaming with digital station operator Weigel Broadcasting for the launch of Me-TV, a television network offering classic television sitcoms, dramas and classic commercials to digital broadcast stations. Me-TV, which stands for Memorable Entertainment Television, has already been tested on a local level: a local version of the network has been airing on Weigel Broadcasting’s WWME in Chicago. WWME and Weigel’s station WBME, which covers the Milwaukee/Racine metro area, have become the first affiliates of Me-TV, whose lineup consists of Cheers, M*A*S*H, The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Bob Newhart Show. Me-TV, whose national distribution will be handled by MGM’s domestic television sales division, follows MGM and Weigel’s collaboration on the 2008 launch of Thistv, a free movie service.
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Living in Australia, I’d personally love for MGM’s online video site to be made available to viewers outside the US, like Sony did with Crackle. Do it!
Would like a channel that constantly shows Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, Madlock, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Fugitive, Little House on the Prairie and all shows in the 60′s and 70′s The Advertisers will come flocking!!!
This was Nick@Nite’s line-up in the 90′s. Very unoriginal seeing this has been done. Guess it doesn’t matter as long as the shows are not on the air now?
Those shows are all classics, how much has CBS/Viacom made off of, and is still making off of I Love Lucy? Good shows unlike the stuff of today, will be around 50 years into the future and people will still be watching them, for a price.
Agree with you one hundred percent. The old shows will never die. Why? Because they were originals. Personally, I loved “30 Rock” the first time I saw it… when it was called “Hiller and Diller”. Look it up, people.
Actually, I think that if they follow the model of ThisTV, the Me-TV channel will be available over the air via digital broadcast in many many cities. Commercial-supported Free TV. Welcome to the new 21st Century.
Didn’t Nick at Nite do this, TVLand? Hopefully they won’t have to wrangle too many copyright/licensor issues to get non-MGM held material on this.
Programing on ME-Tv is comming from The CBS Television Syndication and 20th (Century Fox) Televison Libraries. No probraming from MGM’s TV library is being used (most of that is on THIS anyway)
Anyway, ME-TV and Tribune’s ANTENNA TV are late-comers to the field, RTV (Retro Television Network) has been offering a similar type network for 5 1/2 years,and is already in over 100 markets – several are full-power primairy channel affiliates, not sub-channels.
Problem with RTV is NO product. Antenna TV has Three’s Company, All in the Family, Stooges, Married with Children. ME-TV has Honeymooners, Van Dyke and other older programs, RTV has junk.
Adding a third season of the Lion’s Stargate Universe and perhaps even a sixth season of Stargate: Atlantis would be great ways for the channel to gain an instantly high profile.
Id love to get this, as long as they convert all these old TV shows into HD! Come on, people, these are the 21st century teen years, and now that movies have been changed into High Def, lets do it for all these classic sitcoms!
Just a few caveats: RTV has been through bankruptcy, stations are having trouble getting cable and satellite carriage for these subchannels, plus how many people are actually WATCHING? How many advertising dollars are these channels attracting? And there has been a plethora of subchannel program providers that have crashed and burned or never launched. Remember the .2 Network? The Tube? TCN (The Country Network), which was supposed to get a big launch last fall, is still only available in a handful of markets. And there’s no broadcast spectrum space to put these subchannels in HD without compromising the main channel, nor is there any business model to justify doing new HD transfers. Don’t get me wrong; I’d love to see Antenna, ME-TV, ThisTV and RTV succeed, but as MyNetworkTV’s troubled gestation shows, there’s only so many ways you can slice this pie.