As I reported at Family Theater Productions’ Faith & Family Media Blog, the new enterprise launches across the country next month:
As reported in Variety and at Deadline.com, digital subchannel Light TV represents a partnership between MGM — where Burnett is president of MGM Television and Digital, and Downey runs the production company LightWorkers Media — and several Fox owned-and-operated stations and affiliates around the country.
It will feature repackaged content from the MGM library — including movies like “Lilies of the Field” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” and such TV shows as “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?,” “Highway to Heaven” and “Heartland” — along with developing original programming.
It’s not a digital streaming channel like Netflix or Hulu. In fact, you wouldn’t even need a computer or cable access to watch it — provided you have a TV that can be hooked up to a digital antenna.
When over-the-air TV channels — such as your local network affiliates — were forced to move from analog to digital broadcasting a few years ago, extra room opened up in their broadcast signal. This allowed for the creation of digital subchannels. Some of them are carried on local cable systems (usually tucked away in the 500s and above), but they can also be accessed via a digital antenna — a new version of the old rabbit ears or roof antennas everyone used to have back in the analog days.
Some subchannels are direct offshoots of the main channel, while others are independent entities renting the bandwith. That’s the case with Light TV, whose lineup of Fox channels includes New York (WNYW); Los Angeles (KTTV); Chicago (WFLD),; Philadelphia (WTXF); Dallas (KDFW); Houston (KRIV); San Francisco (KTVU); Washington, D.C. (WTTG); Atlanta (WAGA); Orlando (WOFL); Phoenix (KSAZ); Minneapolis (KMSP); and Charlotte, North Carolina (WJZY).
Click here for the full story, which features comments from Downey, and information on how to choose and buy a digital antenna.
Image: Wikimedia Commons/LightWorkers Media
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