New TV Network Called "Rewind TV" Will Target Gen X Viewers

Readers of this blog may recall that I've chronicled the emergence of new, broadcast television stations which have taken over the entertainment space of the old TV show rerun circuit once dominated by Viacom CBS's TV Land cable network (itself evolving from the evening schedule of the old Nickelodeon network, with adult programming aimed at filling airtime in the evenings when their parents were more likely to tune in to a content it branded as "Nick at Nite"). Plus, TV Land itself has evolved in recent years with more original programming, hence it no longer relies exclusively on old reruns as it once did. One new TV channel I blogged about was NBC Universal's Cozi TV which launched in January 2013 (catch my blog post about that station when it launched HERE for more). 

Antenna TV happens to be the Nexstar Media Group's multicast network that launched on January 1, 2011 and was originally begun by Tribune Broadcasting which Nextstar acquired in 2019. Antenna TV currently airs in 151 broadcast TV markets across the U.S. reaching 93% of TV households, is reportedly launching a secondary companion network focusing on series from the 1980's and early 1990's. Officially, it will be called Rewind TV, a digital subchannel offering a slate of classic television sitcom hits from the 1980's and 1990's. More info about Rewind TV can be found at www.rewindtv.com and the station will launch starting on September 1, 2021 in select markets including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The press release can be viewed at https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210426005123/en/. Whether it secures cable carriage remains to be seen; given that greedy cable companies are seeking a payout, its unclear if the network is ready or able to secure coverage from major cable networks, too.

Currently, Antenna TV is a mixture of older TV programming from the 1950's to the 1990's aimed at the Baby Boomer audience, but the new Rewind TV will be focused on somewhat newer content which might resonate with people who came of age during the 1980's. Its a very similar station which targets Generation X and older Millennials rather than Baby Boomers who recall TV content from the 1950's and 1960's. The company has licensed the rights to air shows on both channels if it chooses to do so.

Rewind TV will air several series currently found in the Antenna TV library, but the new channel has also acquired the rights to broadcast a few new sitcoms including "The Drew Carey Show" (he is now the permanent host of the TV game show "The Price Is Right"), "Suddenly Susan", "The John Larroquette Show" and "Caroline in the City" which is coming after the new network launches. "Suddenly Susan" is planned for Rewind TV in 2022. "The Drew Carey Show" and "The John Larroquette Show" are totally new to the company, and will start airing in 2022 along with "Suddenly Susan". Joining "Caroline in the City" in September 2021 on Rewind TV are some Antenna TV favorites including "227", "Becker", "Dear John", "Designing Women", "Diff'rent Strokes", "The Facts of Life", "Family Ties", "Growing Pains", "Head of the Class", "The Hogan Family", "Mork & Mindy", "Murphy Brown", "My Two Dads", "NewsRadio", "Sabrina The Teenage Witch", "Who's the Boss", and "Wings" which all will migrate over to Rewind TV starting in September 2021. Some of these series are currently not airing on Antenna TV even though the media group has licensed the shows.

Nexstar's original companion digital network, Antenna TV, will continue to air some of the more popular programming from the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's, including weeknight reruns of "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" as well as TV sitcoms such as "Three's Company", "Bewitched" and "The Jeffersons". It is unclear how the channel known as Antenna TV will evolve as more and more of the Baby Boomer population die off, or if it simply rebrands itself to accommodate younger groups. Regardless, the "antenna" brand may not resonate with younger age groups, hence the new brand of Rewind TV may be the direction we see things going. It may sound morbid to some, but the reality is that in spite of increased longevity, Baby Boomers are dying simply due to their now elderly status. According to a Baby Boomer death clock (in fact, the site maintains death clocks for all generations, not limiting itself exclusively to Baby Boomers), approximately 27% of the population born between the years of 1946 and 1964 has already passed away.

Multicast networks have emerged following the TV industry's transition to high-definition signals and the corresponding increase in digital capacity according to Deadline Hollywood. The networks, most of which are owned by local TV station groups, can be viewed over the air without a pay-TV subscription, and some reach more than 90% of U.S. households. Popular multi-casters include MeTV, Bounce, Laff, and the recently reactivated Court TV

"This year marks Antenna TV's 10-year anniversary, and it continues growing and finding new audiences," said Sean Compton, President of Nexstar Media Inc.'s Networks Division. "To complement Antenna TV's strong following with Baby Boomers, we created Rewind TV to give Gen X viewers a network dedicated to their own nostalgic comedy classics."

Of course, Rewind TV is now competing with a new crop of new internet-powered streaming services including Viacom CBS' PlutoTV, NBC Universal's Peacock, and Fox Entertainment's Tubi platforms, all of which offer free, advertiser-sponsored content. Some, such as Pluto TV, has sub-channels of their own dedicated to some of the very same shows available all day, anytime (such as "Three's Company", "Wings" and "Family Ties"). 

Still, the renewed focus on younger generations is probably long overdue. 

Many younger viewers, for example, will simply change the station if they see a black and white program airing. Although Gen Xers grew up watching old reruns of sixties TV shows, including several which ran during broadcast TV's transition from B&W to color (such as "Gilligan's Island", "I Dream of Jeannie", "Bewitched", "The Andy Griffith Show" and others), they also witnessed the colorization of such shows after-the-fact (a number by Atlanta-based media mogul Ted Turner which was considered controversial at the time), but many now prefer the newly colorized episodes to the B&W versions of the same episodes.

But Rewind TV will focus mainly on content from the eighties, hence all of it will be in color. Some series slated for Rewind TV, such as the inaugural show that starred Robin Williams known "Mork & Mindy" actually premiered in the late 1970's but is better remembered as an eighties show since it ended its run in 1982, but has been slated to air on Rewind TV rather than on Antenna TV.

In any event, Gen X TV viewers in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago will be able to tune into Rewind TV starting in September 2021, and more stations are expected to open around the country starting next year. Rewind TV can be found online at RewindTV.com.

Mary Tyler Moore Show: Groundbreaking, or a Reflection of How America Was Changing?

The Mary Tyler Moore (MTM) Show premiered CBS in 1970 and ran until 1977.  The show's name comes from the actress who played the lead character, even though the character's name was Mary Richards on the show.  Perhaps it's because Mary Tyler Moore was already a well-known television personality at the time, having co-starred in a (black and white, no less) popular sitcom called "The Dick Van Dyke Show" as his wife, Laura Petrie.  I don't know.  But The MTM Show was considered groundbreaking at the time it premiered.

The reason?

The lead character was a never-married, independent career woman.  As Mary Richards, she was a single woman in her thirties, and moved to Minneapolis after breaking off an engagement with her boyfriend of 2 years.  She applied for a secretarial job at TV station WJM, but that was already taken, but she was instead offered a position of associate producer of the station's "Six O'Clock News".  Mary Richards was very different from other single women on TV before her (or even at that time).  She was neither widowed nor divorced, but she was also not seeking a man to support her.  Prior to that, the only other show I can think of which even came close was "That Girl" (which was a Desilu production at the time, although Desilu was purchased by Gulf+Western in 1967, which renamed the company Paramount Television, which would later become CBS Television).  "That Girl" ran on ABC from 1966-1971 and starred Marlo Thomas as Ann Marie who moves from her hometown of Brewster, NY to try to make it big as a young actress in New York City.  But Ann Marie had a fashion wardrobe that no one in her financial situation could afford, even if she did break the mold of women depicted in roles as homemakers or traditional employment as secretaries (adminstrative assistants) or nurses.   But unlike Mary Richards on MTM, Ann Marie was pretty attached to her boyfriend Donald Hollinger (played by actor Ted Bessell), and the lead character Ann Marie also reached out to her parents somewhat regularly.

Turning the World on With Her Smile While Paving the Way for Women's Independence

Looking back at it, its hard to believe MTM show was so groundbreaking for its portrayal of women's roles that were not happy homemakers in those days, but it was.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong is the author of a new book about Mary Richards and the rest of the gang at the WJM newsroom and the real life people behind the show.  Her book is entitled "Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And all the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic" says that MTM's lead character, Mary Richards was really "The first kind of really independent single woman.  She's 30, unapologetically single on television".  Armstrong says it's from her that we got the single-girl television shows that push boundaries in modern times, from "Sex & the City" to "Girls".

Kai Ryssdal of Marketplace radio recently interviewed Jennifer Keishin Armstrong and that interview can be listened to below, or by visiting http://bit.ly/16cI89Z:

The new book examines the role that working women on television had in the early 1970s, and I've already said that Mary Tyler Moore helped pave the way for the revolution that followed, specifically the disappearance of stay-at-home mothers which would become the exception rather than the rule.  Indeed, Gen X kids paid a price for that by essentially having to care for themselves while both their fathers and mothers were out earning a living.  There were no lesson plans on how to deal with the family dynamics of both spouses working, so it was very much on-the-job training, and Gen X was on the front lines of that.

To be sure, some social conservatives would like to blame women's lib and personal self-fulfillment on narcissism, but the reality was that lousy economic times played a far bigger role than they'd like to acknowledge.  Around that time, it was becoming painfully evident that it was simply no longer possible to live what Americans like to think of as the American Dream on a single income except for the most affluent segments of the population.  Hence, working women became an economic necessity.  Television shows like "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" reflected what was already happening in the U.S. at the time.

MTM paved the way for other hit sitcoms that followed, including "One Day At A Time" (see my post on that sitcom at http://goo.gl/DSznq for more on that show), about a divorced women trying to raise two daughters on her own while also trying to earn an income.  Mary Tyler Moore herself, a TV veteran from the days in which TV was still recorded in Black and White who was a big reason for the show's strategic direction.  She, and her then-husband Grant Tinker, really pushed the show's depiction of the changing role of women when it premiered in early 1970s.

The MTM show's cast moved on to do a host of other TV shows, including "Rhoda", "Valerie", "The Love Boat", "Two Close for Comfort", and various others, all thanks to Mary Tyler Moore.

These days, Mary devotes most of her time as the International Chairman of JDRF (formerly the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation), an autoimmune disease which renders individuals' lives completely dependent on an exogenous source of the hormone insulin, and carries a constant risk of life-threatening complications because managing the disease is far more complex than taking a pill and modifying diet.  Moore herself has the disease, but in her successful career, aside from being a Tony-nominated stage actress, is also an accomplished film actress.  In fact, she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in 1980's "Ordinary People", and was also nominated for the Academy Award for the same role.

MTM Female Cast Reunites on "Hot In Cleveland"

Mary Tyler Moore and much of the cast from the "Mary Tyler Moore Show" (MTM) are getting a fair amount of publicity these days.  Indeed, on April 5, 2013, most the entire MTM cast (at least the women on the show) were reunited to record an episode for Season 4 of TV Land's original show "Hot In Cleveland" (the actual episode will air September 4, 2013 at 10pm ET/PT).  The women of the "Mary Tyler Moore Show" had not been on a television sitcom together since MTM ended in 1977.

Mary herself had already been a guest on "Hot In Cleveland" during the show's second season, in which she shared a jail cell with Elka (played by Betty White, who's a regular cast member on "Hot in Cleveland"). 

Betty White was a regular (starting in season 4) on The MTM Show playing the The Happy Homemaker Sue Ann Nivens, on who gave advice on TV to housewives on cooking and decorating on the show's fictional WJM-TV in Minneapolis, MN.  On-screen, Sue Ann Nivens gave the impression of a sweet, perfect wife and homemaker, yet her character off-screen was sardonic and  man-obsessed.  More recently, another female actress from MTM show joined the cast of "Hot In Cleveland", specifically actress Georgia Engel who's now a recurring cast member who plays Mamie (she joined "Hot in Cleveland" in season 4).

Bittersweet MTM Reunion To Air on September 4, 2013

The "Hot in Cleveland" reunion for the women of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" is kind of bittersweet.  That's because actress Valerie Harper, who played Rhoda Morgenstern, Mary's best friend (BFF), told the world that she was diagnosed with a rare form of terminal brain cancer in the winter of 2013, so the "Hot In Cleveland" episode will likely be one of her final sitcom appearances.

Ms. Harper told the press she had some stroke-like symptoms that sent her to the hospital which lead to a diagnosis on January 15, 2013 of a rare type of brain cancer called leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, that occurs when cancer cells spread into the fluid-filled membrane surrounding the brain.  Her diagnosis is terminal, and Ms. Harper told People magazine (see http://bit.ly/WQSl91) as well as the Today show and TV show "The Doctors" that she likely had only a months to live.  Valerie Harper has been very public with her diagnosis.  I may try to cover Valerie Harper in a separate post since I have enjoyed her recent autobiography and my readers may enjoy it, too.

Indeed, Valerie Harper is getting a fair amount of TV coverage these days.  Her battle with terminal brain cancer will be chronicled in a one-hour documentary from NBC News to be hosted by Meredith Vieira which airs Septmber 19, 2013 at 10 pm, and will offer a first-person account as Harper pursues experimental treatments and continues on with day-to-day life accompanied by her husband Tony Cacciotti and their daughter Christina.  She allowed camera crews to follow her as she goes on doctor's visits, undergoes surgery and reunites with friends and family.

Beyond that, The Me-TV network plans to start airing "Rhoda" reruns starting next week.

As I noted, Ms. Harper was Mary Richards's BFF on MTM back in the early 1970s.  She also had a hit spin-off from that show after MTM ended known as "Rhoda" (both MTM and "Rhoda" are now available on DVD).  In 1987, Valerie Harper made news for being fired from a TV show named after her ("Valerie") by what was then Lorimar Telepictures over a salary dispute (see http://lat.ms/16un2UJ for background).  Lorimar replaced her in the NBC show named after her with actress Sandy Duncan, who supposedly played her sister-in-law, and the show was retitled "Valerie's Family", although the show did not last very long after Valerie Harper was let go.

On that point, even rival NBC television show "The Golden Girls", then in season 4 in the episode known as "The Days and Nights of Sophia Petrillo" kind of jokes about the dispute in which she goes to a local supermarket representing the elderly, but notes "I've got a a better case than Valerie Haper!"  While in one sense they were lightly poking fun at Valerie, it showed the issues actors were still having with big Hollywood studios of the day.  Lorimar, for the record, later became a subsidiary of Warner Bros., active from 1969 until 1993, at which point it was folded into Warner Television.

I'll close with the lyrics to the iconic MTM theme song "Love is All Around" by Sonny Curtis; you can download the full song by visiting http://amzn.to/13pErZD:

How will you make it on your own?

This world is awfully big, girl this time you're all alone

But it's time you started living

It's time you let someone else do some giving

Love is all around, no need to waste it

You can have a town, why don't you take it

You're gonna make it after all

You're gonna make it after all

Author P.S., January 25, 2017:  There was news today that actress Mary Tyler Moore - considered to one of television's early feminists (along with Marlo Thomas, who played on the sitcom "That Girl" from 1966-1971) because she played a single, career woman in her namesake sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" from 1970-1977), well before the term became popular, had died at Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut (see the obituary at https://nyti.ms/2k1cN79 for more detail), which was where she and her husband Dr. Robert Levine lived (along with a Manhattan, NY address where they lived part-time).  She was 80 years old at the time of her passing.  The cause of death was cardiopulmonary arrest after she had contracted pneumonia.

NBC Universal to Launch Cozi TV in January

Once upon a time, reruns of old TV shows were shown in syndication, often at odd times of day as "filler" programming. Although that still happens to some extent, then came cable, and when that was still comparatively new, there was a network called Nickelodeon which featured programming geared towards children. But the Nickelodeon cable network realized it had a bit of a problem: after dark, their core audience went to bed and was not allowed to watch television! So executives at Nickelodeon came up with a plan to keep advertisers on board which they called "Nick at Night", with programming consisting mainly of reruns of old network sitcoms to lure adults in to watching it. The plan worked - adults did tune in to watch programs they were familiar with but hadn't seen in a while.

Over time, as the number of channels expanded, Viacom turned Nick at Night into "TV Land", a completely separate channel (although Nickelodeon still airs some older programming on Nick@Nite it's now mainly geared towards kids). However, since the advent of digital television, the number of channels has expanded significantly, and today, TV Land isn't alone in showing reruns. In fact, TV Land has been criticized by viewers on Facebook for only showing classic television during odd times and typically in blocks all together rather than an integral part of the programming schedule, instead leaving prime time open to first-run series such as the popular original show "Hot In Cleveland" which stars Betty White, Valerie Bertinelli, Wendie Malick and Jane Leeves as well as "Happily Divorced" which stars "The Nanny" actress Fran Drescher.

Host of New Channels Assume the Former Role of TV Land

Fortunately, today, there are a few other networks operating in the classic TV space, notably RTV (Retro Television), Antenna TV and Me-TV (which stands for Memorable Entertainment Television). Of these, I believe all (or most) are available without cable or satellite service (depending on which media market you live in), but via the digital airwaves.

Cool!

For the moment, I have found some of my personal favs on Me-TV. For example, this past summer, they ran a programming schedule called "The Summer of Me-TV", but among the shows that routinely filled their lineup were "The Bob Newhart Show", "Batman", "Get Smart", "Green Acres", "Gumby", the original "Hawaii Five-0", "Happy Days", "Laverne & Shirley", "Lost In Space", "Love American Style", "Mary Tyler Moore", and "That Girl".  I know, some of them are actually '60s shows that carried over into the '70s (such as "Get Smart" and "Green Acres").

Rival Antenna TV also has a number of shows worth looking into, including "Maude", "The Partridge Family", "Soap", "WKRP in Cincinnati", "Sanford and Son", "Three's Company", "Good Times", "All in the Family" and "Adam-12" as well as a number of shows from the '60s and even one or two from the '80s (who remembers "Too Close for Comfort"?). The simple fact is that much of this is now on the airwaves, so set your DVRs!! I don't have RTV in my area (which is the NYC media market, but I believe that network has better coverage in smaller media markets), whose lineup includes "Fat Albert" and "Archie" cartoons, "The Bill Cosby Show" (the original, not the '80s blockbuster "Cosby Show" which did not carry Bill's name) as well as the original "Starsky & Hutch".

Coming in January 2013: Cozi TV

However, joining these retro rerun networks in January 2013 will be a new addition from NBC Universal to be known as Cozi TV. It will be introduced in most of NBC-owned network affiliate markets (except Hartford, Connecticut, although half of Connecticut also receives New York City stations). Cozi TV will try to differentiate itself with movies that haven't aired in a while, but the new network will also be able to draw from NBC Universal's own vast programming library, including more than a few shows that haven't received much recent airplay, including "Magnum P.I.," "Marcus Welby M.D.," "Charlie's Angels," "The Lone Ranger," "Highway to Heaven," "The Six Million Dollar Man," and "The Bionic Woman."

Cozi TV also has agreements in place with other distributors, including Sony Pictures, so it will not be drawn exclusively from NBC Universal, but the new network has said it will also leave time ample in the programming schedule for local stations to utilize for local newscasts, local college and/or high school sports or, what has become common in the multi-channel TV environment, paid advertising.

The new network's initial branding will be: "Cozi TV. The easiest decision you'll make all day."

Have a look at the commercial that's been prepared for Cozi TV below, or by visiting http://youtu.be/8ANDOXSsHL4:



In the end, competition is usually a good thing.  I would say if your favorite old shows aren't on one of the existing networks, there's a good chance they could appear on Cozi TV.  Set your DVRs accordingly!