Decades (TV network)

On October 21, 2014, CBS Corporation and Weigel Broadcasting announced the launch of Decades, with plans to debut the network in 2015. Through its part-ownership by CBS Corporation, Decades announced that owned-and-operated stations of the CBS television network would serve as its initial charter affiliates.[5][6]

The network was the first national multicasting venture by CBS Television Stations. The group did not carry subchannels on any of its television stations prior to 2013. And at the time of the Decades announcement, only three of its stations even maintained subchannels (CBS O&Os WCBS-TV in New York City and KYW-TV in Philadelphia carried rolling news channels under the "CBS Plus" brand on their respective secondary subchannels, while independent station KTXA in Dallas-Fort Worth carried MeTV on its second subchannel). In addition, CBS Television Distribution had already maintained a content distribution agreement with Weigel Broadcasting's classic television network MeTV, which sourced much of its programming from that library.

On January 13, 2015, Weigel Broadcasting confirmed that its Milwaukee CBS affiliate WDJT-TV would carry the network on its fourth digital subchannel.[7] It would replace the digital news service TouchVision.

Decades officially launched at 7:00 a.m. Eastern Time on May 25, 2015, with the series premiere of Through the Decades as its inaugural telecast. At the time, the network was available in over 45% of all American households with a television set.[8]

Decades relies primarily on programming from the extensive content library owned by CBS Television Distribution,[5] which includes the pre-2006 Paramount Television library – which CBS had acquired as a result of absorbing Paramount's syndication unit in 2006 through its split from Viacom into a separate company – along with series from Desilu Productions, Bing Crosby Productions, Don Fedderson Productions, QM Productions, Spelling Television and Republic Pictures Television. Decades also carries series and movies from NBCUniversal, Warner Bros., Disney (20th Century Fox), Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Lionsgate, Sonar Entertainment, the Peter Rodgers Organization, Shout! Factory, The Carsey-Werner Company and the public domain.

In order to stand out from other "retro-TV" multicast services (such as MeTV and Antenna TV), the Monday through Friday schedule initially featured a block of programming based on a daily theme, with interstitials to highlight the theme. Each six-hour block of programming was repeated four times a day and typically included a feature film, episodes of theme related TV programs, and biographical programs featuring celebrities, actors and actresses, musicians, athletes, and public figures of interest. The theme blocks were bookended with Through the Decades, an hour-long program hosted and narrated by Bill Kurtis (who formerly served as a presenter for Chicago CBS O&O WBBM-TV and CBS News) that explores the events and news from a particular day or period in history, using archival footage that CBS owns via services such as CBS News and CBS Television Distribution's syndicated newsmagazine program Entertainment Tonight.[3][5][9]

The network's Saturday and Sunday schedules feature "binge" blocks of classic television series. Beginning on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. (ET), forty-two consecutive hours are devoted to a particular series, which is usually sourced from either the CBS Television Distribution library of shows or a show Weigel Broadcasting has a contract to carry (such as one of the shows it broadcasts on MeTV).[10]

Airings of The Dick Cavett Show were added to the schedule February 1, 2016 within the daily themed block, as appropriate. Episodes from Cavett's late-night ABC talk show from 1969 to 1974 as well as his later interview series on PBS, USA, and CNBC were all made available for airing.[11]

On November 1, 2016, a major change was made to the programming lineup, with the daily programming block reduced to two airings daily (one from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, the other in overnight) as the 2:00 p.m. to midnight (ET) time period was converted to a "daily binge" with a different show airing each day. During the month of November, a different "cop show" was aired each weekday;[12] in December, sitcoms were featured, and in January 2017, shows that aired in 1957, 1967, 1977, 1987 and 1997 were featured.

A further shift in direction from the original channel concept came on December 5, 2016, when the network added two daily airings of the NBC series Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, the first breaking the daily binge in half at 6:00 p.m. (ET) and the same show repeating at the conclusion of the binge time block.[13] The themed block was also modified to include a daily airing of The Dick Cavett Show at the starting point of each day's block.

As of May 2015, Decades has current or pending affiliation agreements with 35 television stations covering at least 44% of the United States.[8] Weigel Broadcasting handles the responsibility of affiliate distribution to stations outside the core CBS O&O group.[3]

Decades is offered to stations on a barter basis, in which the network and the local affiliate will share the responsibility of selling advertising inventory and split the allocated hourly commercial time. CBS affiliates and their owners hold the right of first refusal to carry the network in their local market, before it is offered to other network-affiliated stations.[3] The network is also available on local cable television providers (most likely through their digital tiers, as is the case with most multicast networks) and other pay television services at the discretion of the affiliate's parent station.[14]

CBS Television Stations initially planned to launch Decades on all 16 CBS owned-and-operated stations (including two that operate as satellite stations of Minneapolis O&O WCCO-TV). Not all of the CBS Television Stations outlets were announced to carry Decades initially, as CW owned-and-operated stations in markets where CBS Corporation does not own a CBS O&O (such as Tampa and Seattle) were originally excluded from its initial list of affiliates. The standalone CW O&Os were later added as charter stations by late April 2015. In the Chicago market, where CBS Television Stations and Weigel Broadcasting each own television stations, the network was carried on CBS O&O WBBM-TV, instead of one of Weigel's three stations in that market – WCIU-TV, WWME-CA and WMEU-CD. (A similar situation existed in that market with Movies!, in which WPWR-TV – owned by Weigel's partner in that network, Fox Television Stations – carries the network in lieu of any of Weigel's outlets.) Conversely, Weigel-owned WBME-CD carries the network in the Milwaukee market.[7] WMYS-LD in South Bend, Indiana is the other Weigel-owned station to carry the network.

On January 9, 2015, Decades reached its first affiliation agreement with a station outside the core CBS group, through a deal with Media General for its Green Bay, Wisconsin ABC affiliate WBAY-TV (which was previously affiliated with CBS from 1953 to 1992). WBAY planned to carry the marathon blocks on its third subchannel as a replacement for the Live Well Network.[2] However, on January 13, as a result of Disney–ABC Television Group's decision to temporarily continue Live Well Network's national operations, WBAY announced that its 2.3 subchannel would not switch to Decades until after LWN's new March 2015 shutdown date.[15] It eventually picked up Ion Television as part of a group deal with WBAY owner Media General to carry the network in markets without an Ion station.

On September 3, 2018, Decades was replaced on CBS-owned stations with Start TV, a new Weigel-owned diginet focusing on crime dramas with female leads.[16] Weigel maintained its commitment to Decades, with the company's owned-and-operated stations taking over in Los Angeles and Chicago. When it began airing on Fox-owned television stations, Decades moved to KTTV in Los Angeles. In Chicago, Decades continues to be seen on Weigel-owned WMEU-CD and WCIU-TV.

• Official website