| Type | Broadcast syndication service (as of September 28, 2009) |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Availability | National |
| Area | United States |
| Owner | Fox Entertainment Group (News Corporation) |
| Key people | Roger Ailes, Chairman, Fox Television Stations Group Jack Abernethy, Chief Operating Officer |
| Launch date | September 5, 2006 (as a TV network) |
| Picture format | 480i (SD) 720p/1080i (HD) |
| Official website | http://www.mynetworktv.com |
MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as "My Network") is a television broadcast syndication service in the United States, owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a division of News Corporation. Under its former status as a television network, it was the lowest-rated of the then-six major US English-language commercial broadcast networks.
MyNetworkTV is a sister company to the Fox network, but operates separately. Roger Ailes oversees the service as chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group (FTSG).
MyNetworkTV began operations on September 5, 2006 with an initial affiliate lineup covering about 96 percent of the country,[1] most of which were former WB and UPN affiliates.
On September 28, 2009, following disappointment with the network's results, MyNetworkTV dropped its status of a television network and transitioned to become a syndication programming service, reminiscent of the Universal Action Pack and Warner Bros.' Prime Time Entertainment Network.[2][3][4][5]
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MyNetworkTV arose from the announcement of the CW Television Network, which essentially merged the WB and UPN. As a result of several deals earlier in the decade, Fox Television Stations Group owned several UPN affiliates, including its three largest: WWOR-TV in Secaucus, New Jersey (New York City), KCOP-TV in Los Angeles and WPWR-TV in Chicago. Fox had bought most of them after acquiring most of the television holdings of UPN founding partner Chris-Craft Industries, while WPWR was bought in 2003 from Newsweb Corporation. Despite concerns about UPN's future at the time Fox purchased these three stations, UPN signed three-year affiliation renewals with them in 2003. That agreement's pending expiration, along with some others, in 2006 gave UPN parent CBS Corporation and WB parent Warner Bros. the rare opportunity to merge their respective struggling networks into the CW.
The CW included no Fox-owned stations; in fact, the coveted New York, Los Angeles and Chicago affiliations all went to stations owned by The WB's co-owner, Tribune Broadcasting. In response to the announcement, Fox promptly scrubbed all UPN references from its UPN affiliates' logos and promotions and stopped promoting UPN programs altogether. However, in all three cases (especially in the cases of Los Angeles and Chicago), the WB affiliate was the stronger station; CW executives were on record as preferring the "strongest" WB and UPN affiliates.
Media reports speculated that the Fox-owned UPN affiliates would all revert to being independent stations, or else form another network by uniting with the other UPN and The WB affiliates left out of The CW. Fox parent News Corp chose the latter route, and announced MyNetworkTV on February 22, less than a month after CBS and Warner Bros. announced The CW on January 24.
MyNetworkTV began operations on September 5, 2006 with premieres of its two initial series. Some affiliates unofficially began branding their stations on September 4, 2006 – Labor Day – with supplied preview specials. Programming airs from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. (Eastern/Pacific time) Monday through Saturday.
At least twenty-two current and former affiliate stations have presented MNTV programs out of pattern:
Heavy local sports preemptions are a problem for MyNetworkTV, as they have been for all the netlets. However, they have become less of an issue with the end of the network's telenovela strategy, where an airing of the pre-empted telenovela episode as soon as possible on the same day was required by default rather than the flexibility to push a show off to the weekend that came with UPN, WB, or CW affiliation. Affiliates often scheduled contractual "make goods" of its daily line between 3 and 6 a.m. Not only are these light viewing hours, but they air after Nielsen processes its preliminary morning network ratings.[8]
The network's original format focused on the 18-to-49-year-old, English-speaking population[9][10] with programing consisting exclusively of telenovelas, starting with Desire and Fashion House. Originally, each aired Monday to Friday in continuous cycles of thirteen-week seasons, with a one-hour recap of the week's shows airing on Saturdays; when one series ended, another unrelated series would begin the following week. The fifth and sixth series, American Heiress and Saints and Sinners, appeared one hour per week on Wednesdays before abruptly vanishing from the schedule.[11] The MyNetworkTV serial lineup was broadcast in Australia as FOXTELENOVELA on the W. Channel. In Toronto, the first Desire/Fashion House cycle aired weekday afternoons on SUN TV, but the station decided not to air subsequent cycles for unknown reasons.
The announcement of the network also stated that additional unscripted (i.e., "reality") and current-affairs programming were in development. These were:
MyNetworkTV abandoned development of these programs in Summer 2006 and focused solely on telenovelas.
Later announcements by Fox regarding additional programming to air on MyNetworkTV O&Os—such as Desperate Housewives repeats, a trial run of the now-TBS sitcom Tyler Perry's House of Payne, and a daytime viewer-participation game show, My GamesFever (which has since been cancelled)[12]—do not apply to the network as a whole.
MyNetworkTV does not air children's programming, any news programming or sports. Some affiliate stations, however, carry local news either via their own news departments or a news share agreement, and may serve as broadcasters for local sports teams.
In response to the telenovela lineup's poor ratings performance, highlighted by a rating of 0.7% average households, (see "Performance") reports surfaced[13] that Fox executives planned a major revamp of the MyNetworkTV's programming, decreasing its reliance on telenovelas and adding new unscripted programming to the schedule such as reality shows, game shows (such as My GamesFever), movies, and sports, and a possible revisit to a deal with the Ultimate Fighting Championship.[14] The deal was not signed with UFC, but rather with another mixed martial arts organization, the International Fight League, in conjunction with Fox Sports Net.[15][16]
On February 1, 2007, Greg Meidel, who was named to the newly-created position of network president just 10 days earlier, confirmed the rumors and unveiled a dramatically revamped lineup.[17][18] The intent of the shakeup was to increase viewer awareness of the network (and in turn viewership), as well as to satisfy local affiliates who were disappointed over the poor ratings performance. After March 7 (when Wicked Wicked Games and Watch Over Me finished their runs), telenovelas occupied only two nights of programming, airing in two-hour movie-style blocks rather than on multiple nights. The remainder of the schedule includes theatrical movies and the new IFL Battleground (originally titled Total Impact).
In addition, the Saturday night telenovela recaps ended immediately, in favor of movies until March. The 1986 film Something Wild aired on February 3, becoming the network's first non-telenovela presentation.
Specials and reality programming were also a part of the network's reformatting. The first two specials aired on March 7. Also, MyNetworkTV permanently reduced its telenovela programming to a single night per week, with American Heiress and Saints & Sinners airing one hour each on Wednesdays until their unexpected termination, due to incompatible flow with IFC Battleground from Monday to Tuesday as far as promotions. Also, the Thursday night movie block featured mostly action/adventure films, with Friday night featuring a mix of contemporary classic films, beginning June 5.[19]
A side effect of the new programming schedule was the loss of the network's claim that they were the only U.S. broadcast network to have their entire schedule available in HDTV, due to the IFL, some of the network's movies, and the additional programming being produced in 480i standard definition only.[20]
In Fall 2007, MyNetworkTV removed telenovelas and began to air reality and sports shows.[21]
On September 1, 2007, the network aired its first live program, the men's final of the AVP Croc Tour's Cincinnati Open.
Under One Roof, the network's first sitcom starring Flavor Flav began airing April 16, 2008. Because the program used Canadian writers it was unaffected by the 2007-2008 WGA strike.
On February 26, 2008, the network announced it had picked up the rights to air WWE SmackDown, which left The CW at the end of September 2008. The first Smackdown! episode aired on Friday, October 3, 2008.[22] The first episode of WWE SmackDown pulled in the highest audience in MyNetworkTV history of 3.2 million viewers and for the first time rated fifth for the night ahead of The CW and won the night in the male 18-34 & 18-49 demographics.[23]
MyNetworkTV's debut was far from successful. Desire scored a 1.1 household rating/2 share; Fashion House went up to 1.3/2.[24] Fox had sold about half of its projections of $50 million in advance commercial sales.[25]
As of March 7, 2007 MyNetworkTV was included in Nielsen's daily "Television Index" reports, alongside the other networks, although they were still not part of the "fast nationals" that do feature the others.[26]
Last-minute changes to the Fall 2007 MyNetworkTV schedules included the title of "Divorce Wars" being changed to "Decision House" and the addition of "Celebrity Exposé" and "Control Room Presents" to the network's Monday line-up as well as a one-hour "IFL Battleground" followed by "NFL Total Access" on Saturdays.[27]
The network's shift from telenovelas to reality shows and movies produced only a small bump in the ratings. It averaged only a .7 household rating during September 2007.[28] MyNetworkTV continues to be the second lowest-rated English-language broadcast network in the United States, ahead of only Ion Television.
The night MyNetworkTV debuted WWE SmackDown, the network took fifth place in household ratings ahead of The CW, but shortly afterwards went back to sixth place as time went on.
Of the six broadcast networks, Nielsen Media Research said only MyNetworkTV went up in the ratings, with 1.76 million viewers per night, up 750,000 from the previous season.[29]
On Monday, January 5, 2009, MyNetworkTV aired episodes of The Twilight Zone. The episodes helped MyNetworkTV rise in the ratings along with WWE SmackDown, being the 2nd highest rated show on the network.
The highest rated program to air on MyNetworkTV is Home Alone, which aired on December 10, 2008. Home Alone brought in 3.70 million viewers (not a record) but had a 1.4 demo among the 18-49 year olds.
On February 9, 2009, it was announced that MyNetworkTV would be shifting from a television network to a programming service, similar to that of Ion Television's current lineup.[30][31][32] Litton Entertainment had expressed interest in the MyNetworkTV Saturday time slots.[33] MyNetworkTV began airing more syndicated programming in the fall, which included game shows and dramas, five nights a week.[34]
WWE announced that effective October 2010, that SmackDown would be moving to the cable channel Syfy. The move left MyNetworkTV with no first-run programming other than that it shares with syndicators.
Despite the lack of first-run programming, MyNetworkTV has been renewed for three more years as of February 2011. The programming service has seen significant percentage growth in viewership since its 2006 startup as a television network. Although ratings on MyNetworkTV do not match those of the other broadcast networks, Nexstar Broadcasting CEO Perry Sook said, "I get more inventory per hour than I would get from Fox or ABC.[35]
As of August 28, 2006 167 stations were affiliated with the new network, reaching approximately 106 million households and covering 96% of the US. This number includes six stations owned at the time by companies involved in the founding of the competing CW network: three owned by Tribune Broadcasting (located in Atlanta, Georgia; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington), and three owned by CBS Corporation; however, Gannett Company purchased WATL, the Atlanta Tribune station, shortly after Fox confirmed it as a MyNetworkTV affiliate (Gannett's acquisition of WATL was finalized on August 7, 2006). It must be noted the Tribune sold out its stake in the WB in exchange for long term affiliation contracts with the CW network and no longer has an ownership stake in The CW. CBS is part owner.
On March 6, 2006, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced that 17 of its stations, mostly affiliates of The WB but also a few from UPN and some independent stations, would become MyNetworkTV affiliates in September 2006. This occurred despite the widespread presumption that affiliation with The CW, which at this point was still available in most markets, would be more valuable; however, Sinclair implied that MyNetworkTV was more financially attractive for the company. Some of the markets the 17 Sinclair stations occupy include Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Tampa, Florida; Cincinnati, Ohio; San Antonio, Texas; Birmingham, Alabama; Raleigh, North Carolina; Syracuse, New York; Nashville, Tennessee; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (The San Antonio station has since switched to The CW.)
On March 7, 2006, Raycom Media announced that its WB and UPN stations would become MyNetworkTV affiliates that September. Those stations were WUAB in Cleveland, Ohio, KFVE in Honolulu, Hawaii, and WBXH-CA in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
One of the stations named in an April 26, 2006 announcement of MyNetworkTV affiliates was KNVA in Austin, Texas, which The CW had added to its list of confirmed affiliates a week previously. On May 1, 2006 KWKB in Iowa City, Iowa, another previously-confirmed affiliate of The CW, signed on to carry MyNetworkTV. Until October 2009, these two stations were the only in the US to be aligned with both new networks. (KNVA has since become a sole CW affiliate as mother station KXAN-TV converted its semi-satellite KBVO to a standalone MyNetworkTV affiliate.) KNVA branded MyNetworkTV shows as "MyNetworkTV on The CW Austin". KWKB's website features station logos labeled as both "KWKB The CW" and "My KWKB". In May, WAWB in Huntsville, Alabama became an official MyNetworkTV affiliate with the call letters WAMY.
On July 12, 2006, MNTV added WBFS in Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, KTVD in Denver, WSYX in Columbus, Ohio, WTCN in West Palm Beach, Florida, WHP in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, WUPL in New Orleans, and WAWS in Jacksonville, Florida. WBFS, WTCN, and WUPL are owned by CBS Corporation (with WUPL set to be sold to Belo), KTVD is owned by Gannett, WHP and WAWS are owned by Clear Channel Communications, and WSYX is owned by Sinclair Broadcasting. WSYX, WHP, and WAWS will carry MNTV on digital sub-channel stations.[36][37] The deal with CBS to affiliate their non-CW stations with MNTV came as a surprise to everyone in the broadcasting industry, especially after the icy reception between CBS and News Corp that began after the CW and MNTV came into the picture, as they refused to allow WBFS, WUPL and Boston's WSBK to affiliate with MNTV as a response to pulling UPN names from the Fox-owned stations that were affiliated with UPN.
In August 2006, MyNetworkTV filled in its remaining gaps within the top 100 television markets. On August 11, 2006, MNTV announced WNAC in Providence, Rhode Island as a secondary affiliate; and WNGT-LP in Toledo, Ohio as a primary station. Additionally, on August 22, 2006, the network added KAUT in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and a digital sub-channel of WRGT in Dayton, Ohio to the affiliate list on its website. Also that month, WZMY in Derry, New Hampshire was announced as the Boston-market affiliate. WBIN's (the former WZMY's) affiliation with MNTV ran out in September 2011, and WSBK (which had shunned MNTV at its formation in 2006) took over the Boston-market MNTV affiliation at that time.
From MyNetworkTV's inception until July 2010, Mobile, Alabama was the largest city without a MyNetworkTV affiliate, although the city's DMA (which includes Pensacola, Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and the rest of the Gulf Shores region) has Fort Walton Beach station WFGX as the area's station for the network. This is due to WFGX's weak analog signal, which was not available west of Pensacola, and the lack of a must-carry agreement with Mobile's Comcast system, most likely a remnant of the station's former status as a low-rated Jewelry TV station before the launch of MyNetworkTV. However, WFGX has relocated their digital transmitter to Robertsdale, Alabama which is in the area of the other Mobile-Pensacola television transmitters, and is providing an over-the-air MyNetworkTV affiliate for Mobile for the first time.
On September 28, 2009, the three ION Media Networks-owned stations which cleared MyNetworkTV (WPXX-TV in Memphis, Tennessee and WEPX-TV (and its satellite/full-power repeater WPXU-TV) in the Greenville/New Bern/Washington, North Carolina market), due to an affiliation agreement made by their previous owners, dropped their affiliations and became full-time ION Television stations as they had been before September 2006. A digital subchannel of NBC affiliate WITN-TV took over full affiliation in Greenville/New Bern.
WLMT in Memphis, that market's CW affiliate picked up the network for the sole purpose of carrying SmackDown, and due to the network's reclassification as a programming service, has elected to not carry the remainder of the network's schedule. Eventually, after SmackDown moved to Syfy, WLMT's RTV-affiliated second digital subchannel picked up the remainder of the MyNetworkTV lineup as a secondary affiliation.
Also in September 2009, KDMI in Des Moines, Iowa dropped MyNetworkTV to air This TV full time. For nearly a year afterwards, The CW affiliate KCWI-TV picked up SmackDown and aired it in a very similar manner to WLMT. Until October 3rd, 2011, Des Moines was the largest Nielsen media market without a MyNetworkTV affiliate — either over-the-air or on cable. On that date, KDMI re-affiliated with the service. on September 19th, 2011, KWKB/Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, IA/Waterloo, IA/Dubuque, IA/Iowa City, IA dropped the service in order to concentrate on their CW affiliation. At some point in time, KCRG-TV 9.2 picked up MyNetworkTV. Currently, as of October 2011, the Montgomery, Alabama market is the largest Nielsen media market without a MyNetworkTV affiliate — either over-the-air or on cable as WRJM (now WIYC) became an affiliate of the American Music Video Network (now The Country Network) in April 2009.
On August 30, 2010, KMYS, a Sinclair-owned station serving the San Antonio market and licensed to nearby Kerrville (and also one of the 17 Sinclair-owned stations that were charter affiliates of MyNetworkTV), swapped affiliations with then-CW affiliate KCWX (licensed to Fredericksburg), making it the first known affiliation swap between affiliates of the two netlets in the same market since their formation in 2006.
Due to the availability of "instant duopoly" digital subchannels that are likely easily available on cable and satellite, and the overall lack of a need to settle for a secondary affiliation with shows aired in problematic time slots, both The CW and MyNetworkTV launched with far greater national coverage than that enjoyed by UPN and The WB when they started in 1995. UPN for several years had gaps in the top 30 markets, and by 2005 managed to reach only 86% of the population. This resulted in secondary affiliations with stations carrying other networks. In those markets, programs were either shown out of their intended time-slots or not at all. Examples included Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise; when they were preempted, there were many viewer complaints. There are a small handful of tiny markets, however, which have MyNetworkTV as a secondary affiliation even on digital subchannels because those markets have only one or two stations, and want to place more emphasis on ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox that those markets may have previously lacked on those subchannels.
Nevertheless, because MyNetworkTV was announced after the formation of The CW and thus got most of the "leftover" stations shut out by The CW, there are still availability issues in some markets. In addition, the network is mostly relegated to low-powered stations in some smaller markets, which do not have must-carry status. The arrival of WWE SmackDown to the network has shown this the most, as wrestling fans have complained about the availability issues in several markets that have The CW but not MyNetworkTV. This was most evident in the Lexington, Kentucky market, when local SmackDown viewers actually protested that they couldn't watch SmackDown because of low-powered MyNetworkTV/Retro Television Network affiliate WBLU-LP not being available on cable.[38] That was solved shortly afterward when ABC affiliate WTVQ-TV agreed to move its weather digital subchannel to 36.3 and convert its former spot on 36.2 into a MyNetworkTV affiliate, stripping WBLU of its affiliation in the process.[39]
In the months before the network's launch, several stations changed their on-air identities to accommodate for the then-upcoming network, including all of the Fox Television Stations Group-owned stations. Affiliates also began to show promotions for the network featuring the theme of "Entertainment you can call your own." At first, many Fox owned-and-operated stations branded local programming with the My moniker. An example is My 9 and My 9 News for WWOR-TV. However, by the third week in October, at least one station, KCOP, went to a two-column brand, with the network logo on the left side and the channel number, 13, on the right. The verbal identification became "MyNetworkTV channel 13." KCOP reverted back to the simpler "My 13" branding in May 2007.
However while this is the conventional branding style for the network, at least thirteen MyNetworkTV affiliates (as of August 2011) currently do not use the "My" branding in any capacity: KPDX in Portland, Oregon (referred to as "PDX TV"), KAUT-TV in Oklahoma City (branded under a unique format appealing to the market's military population as "Freedom 43 TV", and previously "OK43"), Little Rock, Arkansas's KARZ-TV (which goes by "Z42", but was branded "My 42" until 2009), Portland, Maine's WPME (which identifies by its callsign, though it was branded as "MyTV WPME" until 2009), Cincinnati's WSTR-TV (referred to by their longtime branding of "Star 64", though branded as "My64" until 2009), Seattle's KZJO (referred to as "JOEtv" since a 2010 callsign change, though it was branded as "MyQ²" until 2010), Philadelphia's WPHL-TV (referred to by longtime moniker "PHL 17", though it was branded "MyPHL17" prior to 2010), a digital subchannel of CBS affiliate WISC-TV in Madison, Wisconsin (branded as "TVW", but was known as "My Madison TV" until 2009), Honolulu's KFVE (which has branded with its call letters since it moved to virtual channel 9, and previously "K-5" when it was on channel 5), Kansas City's KSMO-TV (which brands with its call letters, though branded "myKSMO TV" until 2011), KCWX in Fredericksburg, Texas (serving the San Antonio market) (which has simply used its call letters since it switched from The CW to MyNetworkTV in 2010, though previous affiliate KMYS had branded as "My 35"), and WBIN-TV in Derry, New Hampshire (serving the Boston market) (referred to as "The New WBIN-TV" since a 2011 call change, though it was branded as either "My TV New England" or simply "My TV" prior to 2011). However, WSTR, WPHL, and KSMO's logos are still patterned after the MyNetworkTV logo.
The network has no digital on-screen graphic logo in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, allowing their local stations to use their own logo instead if they choose to do so. On November 13, 2006, the network added a translucent show logo to the bottom left side of the screen, but discontinued it in March with the beginning of the third telenovela cycle.
At the time plans for MyNetworkTV were announced, there was at least one station that was using a similar moniker. WZMY-TV in Derry, New Hampshire filed a trademark for the "MyTV" name in the summer of 2005, and for a short time there was speculation the station might sue Fox for the use of "MyTV".[40] However, on July 21, 2006, an e-mail was sent to WZMY's MyTV e-mail subscribers that the station would become the Boston area's MyNetworkTV affiliate. The official announcement came the following week.[41] (As noted above, what is now WBIN-TV no longer uses the branding despite continuing to carry MyNetworkTV programming through September 16, 2011.) On September 19, WSBK-TV (as noted above) took over the MyNetworkTV affiliation in the Boston market from WBIN-TV and now uses both the "My" branding and its existing "TV 38" branding, with the logo patterned after the MyNetworkTV logo (the blue on the lower right hand corner of the logo has been replaced with the orange of the station's "TV 38" logo'; Miami sister station WBFS followed suit the same day).
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