V-me

V-me
Launched March 5, 2007 (2007-03-05)
Closed January 16, 2017 (2017-01-16) (OTA Affiliations only)
Owned by V-me Media Inc.
Picture format 480i (SDTV)
Slogan Vme Televisión Diferente (English: V-me done differently)
Country United States
Language Spanish
Headquarters Doral, Florida
Sister channel(s) Vme Kids
Primo TV
Website www.vmetv.com
Availability
Satellite
DirecTV 440
Dish Network 846
IPTV
AT&T U-verse 3015

Vme (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈbeme], a pun on veme, "watch me") is a Spanish broadcast television network formerly carried in association with public television stations created for the United States Hispanic market, which is currently pursuing a subscription-based video on demand model. Vme delivers drama, music, current affairs, food, lifestyle, nature and educational pre-school content to its viewers.

History

The 24-hour digital broadcast service was launched on March 5, 2007, and it is dedicated to entertain, educate and inspire families in Spanish with a contemporary mix of original productions, exclusive premieres, acquisitions, and popular public television programs from PBS and American Public Television, specially adapted for Hispanics.[1][2]

The first venture of the media production and distribution company V-me Television Media Inc., it is a public-private partnership between WNET, a non-commercial educational public television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, and the investment firm Baeza Group, the venture capital firm Syncom Funds, and Grupo PRISA from Spain, one of the world's largest Spanish and Portuguese-language media companies.[3][4] WNET is a minority partner in the for-profit venture.[1]

In April 2013, a Florida-based private investor group took control of V-me Media, Inc., the U.S. Hispanic content and distribution company that owns Spanish-language network V-me and V-me Kids. Financial terms of the deal and the percentage of the ownership of the new investors was not disclosed. The V-me Board includes former AOL executive and founder and CEO of DailyMe.com, chairman of the board, Syncom managing partner Terry Jones and WNET’s VP and general counsel Robert Feinberg. V-me founder, Mario Baeza, stepped down as chairman, but will continue to have an ownership interest. LPM is the largest stakeholder in V-me.

Among the journalists who have worked for V-me are Jorge Gestoso, Juan Manuel Benitez, Luis Sarmiento, Alonso Castillo, Jackeline Cacho and Marián de la Fuente.

Final Note

In December 2016, PBS announced that V-me would end its operations during 2017, following the expiration of the network's 10-year contracts with many of these stations, and transition exclusively to being broadcast on ten over-the-air affiliates and as a cable and satellite channel. One of V-me's over-the-air affiliates were dropped by March 31, 2017; many of these affiliates had already chosen to replace V-me with a 24-hour PBS Kids channel, which launched in January 16, 2017.[5] V-me lost several of its affiliates upon the launch of the PBS Kids channel.

Programming

The network broadcasts a variety of programming in Spanish:

  • Latino-focused lifestyle content: health, parenting, travel, food, home, design, self-improvement and sports programs
  • Prime time drama series
  • News and current affairs, with Oppenheimer Presenta and Jorge Gestoso Investiga
  • Nature documentaries from BBC, National Geographic and PBS
  • Latin films and TV miniseries
  • Original music series, like Estudio Billboard
  • Weekly arts and pop culture specials
  • Educational preschool programs in Spanish (40 hours a week); children's television shows include:

Notes

References

  1. 1 2 Everhart, Karen. "Multicast channels crowd bitstream: Vme TV, in Spanish, joins options for stations’ DTV broadcasts." Current. February 12, 2007. Retrieved July 18, 2011.
  2. ↑ Vme TV - Sponsors. Retrieved July 18, 2011.
  3. ↑ Elizabeth Jensen (February 7, 2007). "Public Television Plans A Network for Latinos" (PDF). New York Times. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 24, 2011. Retrieved December 14, 2012.
  4. ↑ Dru Sefton (April 23, 2012). "PubTV multicaster Vme TV faulted for airing 'ordinary commercials'". Current.org. Retrieved December 14, 2012.
  5. ↑ Sefton, Dru (December 14, 2016). "Spanish-language multicaster Vme will soon drop public TV service". Current. Retrieved December 31, 2016.
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