RCN Launches Shalom TV in Chicago DMA

Dec. 20 debut completes linear rollout across distributor's footprint

By Mike Reynolds, Multichannel News -- Broadcasting & Cable, 12/22/2012 12:10:00 PM

RCN has launched Shalom TV on its systems in the Chicago DMA, completing its rollout across the distributor's footprint.

The linear launch in the Windy City environs, on channel 269, came Dec. 20, following the network's Sept. 1 bow on RCN systems serving Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Lehigh Valley,Penn., New York City and Boston. Shalom TV, showcasing the panoramic of Jewish life, is available to RCN Premiere Child & Family Package subscribers. It also accessible on RCN's on-demand platform.

"The Shalom TV Channel is the first channel to do Jewish programming similar to the kinds of programming one finds on PBS," said Shalom TV president and executive director and rabbi Mark Golub in a statement. "We now have daily news from Israel and from our own news desk; wonderful children's programs every morning and afternoon; and timely interviews that can include telephone talk with our audience -- something impossible with on demand."

With the Chicago launch, Shalom TV now counts more than 3 million linear subscribers on RCN, Hot Wire, Blue Ridge Communications, MetroCast in Maine and New Hampshire, and Cablevision, which launched the service on channel 138 earlier this month to Optimum Economy, Value, Preferred, Silver and Gold Package subscribers.

In addition, Shalom TV has on-demand presence in more than 40 million homes via affiliate pacts with Comcast, Time Warner, Optimum, Verizon FiOS, Antietam, Cox Communications, RCN, Bright House, Armstrong, Service Electric Cablevision, Service Electric Cable TV, Buckeye CableSystem, MetroCast, Hotwire Communications, Blue Ridge Communications, Frontier, WOW!, Click!, GCI, Roku and Fave TV.