Retro Television Network
 |
|
| Type | Broadcast television network |
|---|---|
| Branding | Retro TV |
| Country | United States |
| Availability | Nationwide via OTA digital television (U.S. coverage: 58%) |
| Slogan | The Best in Classic Television! |
| Owner | Retro Television, Inc. |
| Parent | Luken Communications |
|
Key people
|
David Leach |
|
Launch date
|
July 2005 |
|
Former names
|
On-air branding: RTN (2005–2009) RTV (2009–2013) |
|
Official website
|
www.myretrotv.com |
The Retro Television Network (branded on-air as RetroTV and alternately below as Retro for brevity) is an American broadcast television network that is owned by Luken Communications. The network mainly airs classic television sitcoms and drama series from the 1950s through the 1980s, although it also includes more recent programs from the 1990s and 2000s. Through its ownership by Luken, Retro is a sister network to several broadcast network properties that are wholly or jointly owned by the company, including the family-oriented Family Channel and country music-oriented network Heartland.
At its outset, Retro was designed to be broadcast on the digital subchannels of television stations; however in recent years, the network's affiliate body has been drawn down to primarily low-power stations, as many station groups have replaced the network on the subchannels of their full-power major network affiliates with similarly formatted networks such as Antenna TV and MeTV, which have assumed rights to many of the distributors that formerly held programming agreements with Retro. The network is also available nationwide on free-to-air C-band satellite via SES-2 in DVB-S2 format; as individualized transmitter-ready feeds for each station are centrally generated using broadcast automation and delivered to the stations by satellite.
The Retro Television Network (originally branded as "RTN") launched in July 2005 on select television stations owned by the Equity Broadcasting Corporation (later known as Equity Media Holdings), a chain of small (often low-powered) satellite-fed UHF television stations controlled directly from Equity's headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas. Equity had expanded quickly with purchases of many small stations in the early 2000s, but by 2008, the company was struggling to meet its obligations.
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