Weigel Broadcasting digital network Decades becomes Catchy Comedy March 27, featuring classic sitcoms such as I Love Lucy, Good Times and Night Court. Catchy Comedy features the tagline “Catch All the Laughs” and is set to be Nielsen-rated.

“It’s a celebration of some of the best situation comedies ever made through the decades,” Neal Sabin, Weigel vice chairman, told B+C. “What Decades did was comedy-centric, but we decided we should rebrand it and fully focus on comedy.”

Daytime during weekdays, Catchy Comedy features female-driven comedies, featuring the likes of I Love Lucy, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Carol Burnett Show. “On the screen, behind the scenes or both, they really changed our business,” said Sabin of Lucille Ball, Moore and Burnett. 

In weekday primetime it’s “Norman Lear’s Catchy Classics,” including Good Times, Sanford and Son and All In the Family. Late night, it’s “Smart and Catchy Sitcoms”, including Night Court, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Cheers, Taxi and The Bob Newhart Show. 

Each weekend offers “The Catchy Binge,” a different comedy marathon. Those will start Saturdays at noon ET, and wrap early morning Mondays. Sabin called the binge-worthy programs “gems that don’t get seen on broadcast or cable,” mentioning The Flying Nun, Brooklyn Bridge and Square Pegs, among others. 

Decades also featured binges. When the network launched in 2015, a joint venture between Weigel and CBS Television Stations, it offered vintage news–what happened on that day in history, including archival CBS News footage. As it transitioned to classic TV, showing the likes of Happy Days, Cheers and I Love Lucy, it presented the shows of a certain decade, be it the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s or ‘80s. 

Shows acquired for the Catchy rebrand include Good Times, Sanford and Son, All in the Family and Night Court. The latter was remade at NBC, and premiered in January. Weigel had acquired the original Night Court, with Harry Anderson playing the judge, before it returned on NBC, which Sabin called “very advantageous.”

Weigel networks include MeTV, Start TV, Heroes & Icons and Movies! Its stations include WCIU Chicago and WDJT Milwaukee. Catchy reaches around 70% of U.S. markets. 

Sabin called Lucille Ball “a guiding force” for Catchy Comedy. “She invented women in comedy,” he added, “and took it to heights that no one else has.” ■

The Weigel Broadcasting digital network Decades is rebranding to Catchy Comedy March 27. With a tagline of “Catch All the Laughs,” the network will feature classic sitcoms. 

Daytime during weekdays, it features female-driven comedies, featuring the likes of I Love Lucy, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Carol Burnett Show. On weekday primetime it’s “Norman Lear’s Catchy Classics,” including Good Times, Sanford and Son and All In the Family. Late night, it’s “Smart and Catchy Sitcoms”, including Night Court, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Cheers, Taxi and The Bob Newhart Show. 

Each weekend offers “The Catchy Binge,” a different comedy marathon. 

“Catchy Comedy is a celebration of the very best in classic television comedy and will showcase and celebrate a who’s who of funny women and TV legends,” Weigel vice chairman Neal Sabin said. “We are excited to bring an all-comedy approach with this exciting rebrand of Decades evolving into Catchy Comedy. Weekdays we will showcase hilarious series with a strong appeal to women, or with female characters that redefined and expanded the role of women in television. Then in primetime we will feature groundbreaking comedy and characters from the legendary Norman Lear, and in late nights we will present some of the smartest and best written comedy series on television. Viewers really will be able to ‘catch all the laughs’ on Catchy Comedy.”

Decades launched in 2015, dubbed “the ultimate TV time capsule,” with Weigel and CBS Television Stations as partners on the network at launch. 

Weigel networks include MeTV, Start TV, Heroes & Icons and Movies! ■

Decades salutes Dick Cavett, Groucho Marx and their relationship with episodes of The Dick Cavett Show featuring the comedian starting Monday, January 2. The event goes through Friday, January 6 in the 9 p.m. ET slot. 

“These rare and intimate conversations offer a unique glimpse into the pair's friendship and showcase Groucho's quick wit and timeless humor,” said Decades. 

PBS premiered Groucho & Cavett December 27. 

On the episode airing January 2, Marx discusses his letters in the Library of Congress and nudity on the Broadway stage with Cavett. On January 3, Marx and Shelley Winters discuss their show Minnie’s Boys. January 4, Marx, author Truman Capote and zoologist Jim Fowler are on the show. The January 5 episode has Marx with Debbie Reynolds, Dan Rowan and Erin Fleming. On January 6, it’s Marx in a “cameo,” Decades said, with Ryan O’Neal, Hegemony Lewis and Dr. Thomas Noguchi appearing on Dick Cavett. 

Decades is part of Weigel Broadcasting. ■

Decades salutes the late Kirstie Alley with special Cheers episodes featuring Alley as Rebecca Howe. “Decades Remembers Kirstie Alley” runs December 6-9 at 11 and 11:30 p.m. each night, then Decades airs “Cheers Weekend Binge”, including seasons six to 11, which featured Alley, December 10 and 11.  

Alley played Rebecca from 1987 to 1993. She died this week after a battle with cancer. She was 71.

On December 6, the Cheers episodes on the Decades digital broadcast network are “Home is the Sailor” and “A Kiss is Still a Kiss.” On December 7, it’s “Backseat Becky, Up Front” and “How to Recede In Business.” December 8 offers “The Improbable Dream (Parts 1 and 2)” and on December 9 it’s “The Days of Wine and Neuroses” and “Wedding Bell Blues.”

The "Weekend Binge" offers 84 episodes of Cheers.

Rebecca Howe came on Cheers as the manager after a corporation bought the bar. She pursues wealthy men, and fends off lascivious advances from Sam Malone. 

Alley’s TV work also included Veronica's Closet, Fat Actress and Scream Queens. 

Decades is part of Weigel Broadcasting. ■

The Decades network offers a Carol Burnett marathon over Christmas that it is calling A Christmas Carol. The three-day marathon of Carol Burnett and Friends starts at noon ET on Christmas Eve and ends the morning of December 26.

The cast includes Vicki Lawrence, Harvey Korman, Lyle Waggoner and Tim Conway. Burnett's guests include Betty White, Rock Hudson, Sammy Davis Jr., Cher and Dick Van Dyke.

The program debuted as The Carol Burnett Show in 1967, and was relaunched for syndication in 1977 as Carol Burnett and Friends.

Moving on to yew year’s, a Twilight Zone marathon happens on Decades. A Toast to Twilight starts at noon ET New Year’s Eve and continues until the morning of January 2.

Rod Serling created and hosted the show, which ran from 1959 to 1964. CBS All Access offered its own The Twilight Zone series for two seasons.

Part of Weigel Broadcasting, Decades has offered A Christmas Carol and A Toast to Twilight over the holidays for the past five years. ■

Decades offers The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast in marathon form on Thanksgiving. The event starts at 6 a.m. ET and concludes 24 hours later. Filmed in the former MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, roastmaster Martin, along with his celeb friends, roast iconic figures of the 1970s and ‘80s in this marathon of hour-long specials.

The event starts with Suzanne Somers and moves onto Sammy Davis Jr., Jimmy Stewart and then Dean Martin himself gets roasted. Betty White, Lucille Ball, George Burns, Bob Hope, Angie Dickinson, Danny Thomas, Mr. T, Jackie Gleason, Jack Klugman and Joe Namath follow, before roastings of Muhammad Ali, Joan Collins and Evel Knievel, among others.

Celebrity roasts originated as a segment in The Dean Martin Show, which aired on NBC from 1965-1974. Standalone roast specials ran from 1974-1984.

Weigel Broadcasting owns Decades, a digital network featuring vintage TV whose motto reads Relive, Remember, Relate. Decades' markets include New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston and Detroit. ■

Streaming TV service Philo said it added Decades and Start TV, two of Weigel Broadcasting’s digital multicast networks, to its streaming channel lineup.

Weigel began making its channels available to streaming platforms earlier this year when it put MeTV  and Story TV on Frndly TV in March. Frndly TV added Decades, Heroes & Icons and Start TV in April. 

Philo has run Sony’s Get TV digital broadcast channel since 2020.

The new channels are being added to Philo at no extra cost to subscribers.

“Attention fans of nostalgia TV and female-led drama! Starting today on Philo, you can view some of the best classic sitcoms in TV history, as well as enjoy shows featuring the top female leading characters in popular scripted TV dramas,” said Philo’s Jane Marks in a blog post. “Philo has added two new channels: Decades and Start TV. We are always looking for new content to bring to our Philo community, and we hope you’ll love these channels as much as we already do.”

Decades, short for Television Across the Decades, features classic-TV comedies from the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, including I Love Lucy, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Bob Newhart Show, Cheers and Taxi.

Start TV features scripted dramas featuring women in diverse and compelling roles. Titles including The Closer, The Good Wife, Major Crimes, Rizzoli and Isles, Medium and Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. ■

Decades offers The Twilight Zone stunt “Rod, White and Blue: A Twilight Zone Celebration” starting Saturday, July 2, at 12 p.m. ET and concluding Tuesday, July 5, at 6 a.m. Fans can binge 120 episodes of The Twilight Zone. 

Created and hosted by Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone aired on CBS from 1959-1964, and blended science fiction, horror and fantasy narratives. Each episode featured a moral or unexpected plot twist, and social issues of the ’60s often came up too. 

It is the fifth year of Decades offering The Twilight Zone marathon around the July 4 holiday. 

Decades, which is part of Weigel Broadcasting, is available across the country, including on the Fox-owned station subchannels in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Detroit, Atlanta, Tampa, Phoenix, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Austin, Texas, and Gainesville, Florida. The network is also available in Comcast homes in New York/New Jersey, San Francisco, Houston, Detroit, Atlanta and Minneapolis-St. Paul and streams on Frndly TV. ■

Hollywood Friday paid tribute to iconic actor/director and civil rights activist Sidney Poitier, who died Thursday night at the age of 94. 

Poitier’s prolific movie career features such groundbreaking films as In The Heat of the Night, Raisin in the Sun, The Defiant Ones, To Sir, With Love and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner that helped paved the way for Black actors in the 1950s and 1960s. Poitier was the first Black man to win the Academy Award for best actor for his role in the 1963 film Lilies of the Field.

Poitier also directed several hit films, including Buck and the Preacher starring Harry Belafonte, Uptown Saturday Night with Bill Cosby and Stir Crazy with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. In 2009, Poitier was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

On TV, Poitier was nominated for Emmy Awards for his portrayals of Nelson Mandela in Showtime’s Mandela and De Klerk, and Thurgood Marshall in ABC’s Separate But Equal.

In tribute to Poitier, OWN on January 9 will present a day-long, Poitier programming tribute including re-airings of The Oprah Winfrey Show episodes in 2000 and 2007 and Oprah Winfrey Presents: Legends Who Paved the Way from 2015; and the 1967 film To Sir, With Love, said the network.

Weigel Broadcasting's retro services Movies! network and Decades network will feature Poitier-themed programming blocks over the next two months. Movies! will air Poitier’s first credited screen role in No Way Out on February 7, as well as three of his films -- No Way Out, Edge of the City and Blackboard Jungle on February 28, said network officials. 

Decades Network will air a 1972 episode of The Dick Cavett Show on January 10 featuring Poitier and Belafonte discussing their movie Buck and the Preacher, said the network.

Industry celebrities from Oprah Winfrey and Morgan Freeman as well as cable networks BET and TV One also paid tribute to Poitier on social media.

Broadcast network Decades celebrates Christmas with “A Christmas Carol”--not the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge and some ghosts, but a Carol Burnett and Friends marathon. The stunt begins at 12 p.m. ET on December 25 and ends the morning of December 27. 

Originally airing as The Carol Burnett Show in 1967, the program was repackaged as Carol Burnett and Friends for syndication. Besides Burnett, Vicki Lawrence, Harvey Korman, Lyle Waggoner and Tim Conway are in the cast. Guests include Betty White, Rock Hudson, Tim Conway, Sammy Davis Jr., Cher, Dick Van Dyke and Maggie Smith. 

A few days later, Decades offers a Twilight Zone marathon starting on New Year’s Eve and concluding January 3. The stunt, referred to as “A Toast to Twilight,” begins 6 a.m. ET on December 31 and ends 7 a.m. January 3. Fully 119 episodes will air, including one-hour episodes from season four. 

Created and hosted by Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone aired from 1959-1964, offering a mix of science fiction, horror and fantasy. 

This marks the fourth year that Decades will feature “A Toast to Twilight” as a new year’s marathon. 

Decades airs vintage TV shows, including The Abbott and Costello Show, The Bob Newhart Show and Family Affair. “With Decades, viewers can travel through a variety of eras to sample and enjoy an incredible variety of television favorites every day,” goes its mission statement. ■ 

Ratings measurement company Rentrak said it has expanded its agreement to provide local market TV ratings data to Weigel Broadcasting, adding stations in Chicago and Milwaukee. According to Rentrak, the company will provide local TV ratings for stations WCIU (IND), WWME (MeTV) and WMEU (IND) in Chicago, and WDJT (CBS), WMLW (IND), WBME (MeTV) and WYTU (TEL) in Milwaukee. Rentrak already provides ratings and Automotive Advanced Demographic information to Weigel’s stations in South Bend—WBND (ABC), WMYS (MyNet) and WCWW (CW)—and renews them as a part of this expansion agreement. “We started our partnership with Rentrak three years ago in South Bend and use them as our sales, programming and marketing currency every day,” said Weigel executive vice president of sales John Hendricks in a statement. “Their massive measurement footprint, with hundreds or even thousands of reporting homes in every ZIP code, provides us with the reliability and stability that we and our advertisers need to provide schedules that deliver the audience levels that we sell. Rentrak’s automotive demographics are exactly what clients want to see to better understand the value of our audiences and to reach actual auto customers.” The deal extends the Rentrak ratings relationship to all Weige owned stations. In addition, Weigel includes Memorable Entertainment Television (MeTV), a digital broadcaster that offers classic TV shows over the air and via cable and satellite, the Movies! Network in partnership with Fox Television stations, Heroes & Icons and the new DECADES Network in partnership with the CBS Television Station Group. “Weigel’s South Bend stations have really hit it out of the park using Rentrak as a selling currency over the last three years, and we are excited to now have the opportunity to bring similar success to their stations in Chicago and Milwaukee,” said Rentrak’s executive vice president of local market television Steve Walsh in a statement.