CBS, Weigel Broadcasting team up to create vintage TV channel

Do you still love Lucy? CBS and Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting are betting you do.

On Tuesday, the companies announced they are rolling out a programming service called Decades, designed to showcase nostalgic favorites.

Decades will air more than 100 classic TV shows including “I Love Lucy,” “Star Trek,” “Happy Days” and “Cheers,” movies and historic events footage from the CBS library.

It will also feature a new, one-hour daily topical show called “Decades Retrospectical,” which will be produced around news events and cultural touchstones of a specific time frame or theme. For example, one program will look at the “jump the shark” episode from “Happy Days” to explain its historical significance.

Marketed as “the ultimate TV time machine,” the programming service will be available on CBS’ local stations’ digital subchannels and some local cable stations beginning in 2015.

Decades is among several networks and channels -- including Me-TV, Antenna TV, INSP and Cozi TV -- that were created over the last couple of years to satisfy nostalgic viewers. Veteran networks such as Nick at Nite and spinoff TV Land also offer similar programming.

In 2008, Weigel Broadcasting and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios formed ThisTV -- a programming service that featured B-level movies that had otherwise been sitting in MGM’s vault.

Three years later in 2011, they teamed up again to to create vintage television programming service Me-TV, or “memorable entertainment television.”

CBS and Weigel said Decades will “differentiate itself from other subchannel programming services by varying the classic series and movies that appear on the network every day.”

Peter Dunn, president of CBS Television Stations, called Decades “the most ambitious and creative subchannel programming service that has ever been created.”

“We are thrilled to partner with Weigel Broadcasting, the leaders in this space, to make smart use of our stations’ spectrums and our companies’ considerable programming assets,” Dunn said in a statement.

“‘Decades’ takes the digital broadcast network platform to a new level,” added Norman Shapiro, president of Weigel, in a statement. “The events, themes and programming possibilities are endless.”

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