NAB: Weigel Adds KVME to Me-TV's Distro List

Complete Coverage: NAB 2012

Weigel Broadcasting has secured additional distribution for its digital channel, Me-TV, adding Venture Technologies' KVME in Bishop, Calif.

"We are excited to bring our KVME facility into the Me-TV family and provide local advertisers with a significant opportunity to reach classic TV fans in the region where most of the Me-TV programming was originally created," said Paul Koplin, Venture's president and CEO, in a statement.

KVME joins independent KDOC Los Angeles in South California. Both stations will brand themselves Me-TV Hollywood. Me-TV also can be found on Dish Network and DirecTV in Southern California as well as on FiOS.

"KDOC brings significant over-the-air as well as cable coverage to the new Me-TV Hollywood effort, helping to create a true win-win situation for viewers and advertisers. It's a great use for our digital sub channel spectrum combined with the primary signal of KVME," said John Manzi, KDOC's GM, in a statement. "Now local advertisers will be able to reach the entire Los Angeles DMA efficiently and easily through jointly managed ad sales over KDOC and KVME."

The additions bring Me-TV's total clearances to nearly 80% of the country, adding more than two million homes to Me-TV's footprint.

Me-TV offers audiences nostalgic TV series from major studios, including M*A*S*H, Perry Mason, Mary Tyler Moore, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Bob Newhart Show and the original versions of Star Trek and Hawaii Five-O. The network was launched nationally in December 2010. It's owned and operated by Weigel Broadcasting and distributed by MGM Television.

Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.