More Stations, More Reruns!

The first medianote of the summer session comes from the Business section of the Los Angeles Times. Reporter Meg James profiled MGM's This TV, a 24/7 programming stream of old movies and TV reruns designed to program the new substations that have become available due to the recent changeover to digital television broadcasts.

Because digital signals are more efficient than analog signals, stations now can broadcast up to four stations at a time. Of course, the substations have miniscule audiences so far, meaning that programming will have to be inexpensive. This TV is free, more or less. Local stations do not have to pay for the programming stream. They merely have to share whatever advertising revenue they generate around whatever This TV programming that they choose to broadcast.