Why Does Phoenix Have Two COZI's?

[landtuna]

Both 5.2 and 39.3 are simulcasting COZI.

I'd gladly trade one of them for RETRO (which we used to have, but lost).

 

[K.M. Richards]

Both 5.2 and 39.3 are simulcasting COZI.

I'd gladly trade one of them for RETRO (which we used to have, but lost).

Obviously, KTAZ is a network-owned station, since Telemundo is owned by NBC. That explains 39.3, at least.

As for KPHO, I suspect Cozi is on there because that affiliation was part of a multi-station affiliation agreement with Meredith about a year ago. It may be that the paperwork doesn't allow only one station to break away from the deal, or it may have a minimum term which has not expired yet.

with 5.2 thus apparently locked in, I doubt NBC is going to affiliate their station with Luken.

Retro is rapidly becoming a shell of its former self. They stopped running a second delayed feed for western affiliates sometime last year, so everyone is on the east coast feed now. To their credit, Luken rescheduled the Saturday morning E/I programming block to start at 10:00am Eastern so that it would not air outside of the FCC-mandated window (between 7:00am and 10:00pm local time) for western affiliates.

The "non-retro" shows Cold Squad and DaVinci's Inquest, which originally ran in late night now run in prime-time Eastern, which means they are on between 4:00pm and 8:00pm Pacific. The much-hyped acquisition of the old NBC soap The Doctors now airs at 2:00am Eastern, right before the infomercials. Beverly Hillbillies (all public domain episodes) are now on four times a day. They now take up two hours a day with the "Retro Movie" which is probably taken from a library of films whose copyrights expired and were not renewed. They've even picked up that terrible Canadian-produced drama Police Surgeon which was hastily and cheaply thrown together back in 1971 for sale to stations looking for something to air in the half-hour that was given back to them by the networks under the Prime Time Access Rule.

Are you sure you want Retro back?

 

[landtuna]

Are you sure you want Retro back?

Well, perhaps with that schedule, not so much. But I liked reruns of the old Hopalong Cassidy shows and it was the only place airing them. Can't remember what else I watched on Retro, if anything.

They seemed to have the same commercial mix as all the other digitnets whose demographics consist of all us Olde Fartes so I wonder why they aren't doing well?

 

[oldiesfan6479]

Cozi TV being on 5.2 gives them better cable system access than "little" 39.3. Not sure how long 39.3 can keep Cozi.

While I don't watch all the Retro crap you mentioned, I would like them back for Naked City and Route 66 (and MST3K).

 

[K.M. Richards]

But I liked reruns of the old Hopalong Cassidy shows and it was the only place airing them.

Well, Hoppy's ridden off into the diginet sunset.

Here's the Retro schedule, adjusted for Mountain Time. Read it and weep, I guess:
http://www.myretrotv.com/uploads/2/6/7/5/2675315/rtv-national-mountain.pdf

They seemed to have the same commercial mix as all the other digitnets whose demographics consist of all us Olde Fartes so I wonder why they aren't doing well?

The story is actually fairly accurately told in the Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retro_Television_Network

In a nutshell, the original owners ran into financial problems within the first three years of the network's operation, which caused them to gradually default on their contracts with the syndicators. They sold the operation to Henry Luken III, which would have been fine under normal circumstances, but he happened to be the president and CEO and the largest shareholder, so it didn't do a tremendous lot of good for their reputation.

They somehow managed to stay in good graces with NBC/Universal for a few years, but their contract ended in 2011 and by that time (one presumes) NBC was working on launching Cozi, so guess what didn't get renewed. With bridges burned left and right around them, they are mainly functioning with whatever they can get from smaller syndicators. That's also why they now have that nightly four-hour non-retro block of programs.

On top of all their other troubles, about 75% of their affiliates are LPTVs. That's gotta be limiting their coverage.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Cozi TV being on 5.2 gives them better cable system access than "little" 39.3. Not sure how long 39.3 can keep Cozi.

As long as they want. As I pointed out, channel 39 and Cozi are both owned by NBC.

 

[landtuna]

Thanks for all the info K.M. It is almost never as simple as one would think, is it?

 

[joebtsflk1]

They've even picked up that terrible Canadian-produced drama Police Surgeon which was hastily and cheaply thrown together back in 1971 for sale to stations looking for something to air in the half-hour that was given back to them by the networks under the Prime Time Access Rule.

I was thinking about that show, or I think it was that show, just in the last day or two. (and also the anachronism of PTAR...)

I remember that it was Canadian, had a hospital setting, and appeared to be produced with color video cameras but was distributed to stations on color film. At least that's what it looked to me as a kid...and it looked quite sorry.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

They somehow managed to stay in good graces with NBC/Universal for a few years, but their contract ended in 2011 and by that time (one presumes) NBC was working on launching Cozi, so guess what didn't get renewed. With bridges burned left and right around them, they are mainly functioning with whatever they can get from smaller syndicators. That's also why they now have that nightly four-hour non-retro block of programs.

On top of all their other troubles, about 75% of their affiliates are LPTVs. That's gotta be limiting their coverage.

Among the bridges burned were most of their affiliation agreements. In 2008 or so, RTV/RTN had a pretty impressive roster of affiliates. It wasn't in every market, but it was generally a subchannel for affiliates of the big 4 networks. As K.M. notes, that is no longer the case.

My guess is that the program outage during the bankruptcy, coupled with retro offerings from much larger companies (Tribune and NBCUniversal) have made RTV a relic of an earlier time.

 

[Nathan O'Dan]

I just noticed last night that Retro TV is back in Phoenix at 38.6

 

[VoiceofWayne]

38.6 Wow! Let's play a game where we see how many bit streams we can squeeze into one channel. -- Thank goodness it's Retro Tv where the source material probably isn't that great anyway.

I noticed 38.3 carries classic music videos -- is this like the famous K61CA of the 80s?