Tribune Launching Classic TV Multicast Network

Tribune Broadcasting will launch Antenna TV, a classic TV network, to run on digital multicast channels starting this January.

"Tribune is committed to making full use of our bandwidth to offer viewers a broad spectrum of programming," said Sean Compton, Tribune's president of programming, in a statement.

Tribune acquired most of the new network's programming from Sony Pictures Television and D.L Taffner, paying cash for each program. Antenna TV is available to stations and station groups on an all-barter basis.

Included in the network's initial offerings will be such classic sitcoms as Three's Company, All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Benny Hill, Maude, The Nanny, Married with Children, Too Close for Comfort, The Partridge Family, Dennis the Menace, The Donna Reed Show and The Three Stooges. Antenna TV also will show movies in daytime.

Tribune also airs MGM and Weigel's digital classic movie network, THIS TV, on digital channels in most of its markets.

"The addition of Antenna TV offers a strong compliment to THIS TV and to our station's existing programming," said Compton.

Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.