https://deadline.com/2020/10/allen-media-group-buys-two-networks-mgm-1234605235/

Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group has acquired MGM’s over-the-air broadcast television networks This TV and Light TV.

The price wasn’t disclosed. The networks, a mix of MGM’s film and television content, are available through over-the-air, cable and online for free. This TV launched in 2008. MGM started Light TV, a lineup of family friendly and faith-based programming, in 2016 with Mark Burnett, chairman of MGM Television, and his wife, Roma Downey, president of MGM’s Lightworkers division.

The Light TV Network will be rebranded in March of 2021 as part of the agreement.

Allen Media Group’s expanding portfolio also includes The Weather Channel, Cars.TV, Comedy.TV and a handful of others focused on genres from entertainment and legal news to travel and pets.

“We are going to continue to invest a substantial amount of capital into the programming, marketing, and distribution of these networks. We are strong believers in broadcasting and free-streaming direct-to-consumer platforms,” said Allen, founder and CEO of Entertainment Studios/Allen Media Group.

Chris Ottinger, MGM’s President of World Wide Television Distribution & Acquisitions said, “Byron Allen is an innovator and has built a tremendous portfolio of networks within his organization. With a reach of over 81 million households, these networks will be great additions to his Allen Media Group.”

Entertainment Studios also owns 16 major network affiliate broadcast television stations and has said it plans to buy more. Other assets include The Grio, a digital video news platform aimed at African-Americans. Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures is a full-service, theatrical motion picture distributor.

I hope Patty Duke, The Addams Family, Mr. Ed, Green Acres and the Beach Party movies find a new home at Me or Decades.

I hope Patty Duke, The Addams Family, Mr. Ed, Green Acres and the Beach Party movies find a new home at Me or Decades.

Green Acres is on Me. It must be one of the few shows that more than one network has the rights to.

Patty Duke is coming to FETV

https://www.nexttv.com/news/byron-allen-to-launch-thegriotv-network-during-martin-luther-king-jr-weekend

Byron Allen to Launch TheGrio.TV Network During Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend

African-American targeted service to replace Light TV multicast network

Blog post: https://blog.sitcomsonline.com/2020/12/sitcomsonline-digest-thegriotv-to.html

I had not watched Light TV in a few months, was shocked to see how much worse it had already gotten. I was checking to see what the Green Acres episodes would be today in the 4PM hour, found it had been moved to 6PM with their former ace Heartland totally gone from the schedule now. And the Green Acres episode descriptions are just generic, not individual episode descriptions like before. The movies they air, don't care to say which movie any more. While The Patty Duke Show is a nice addition, buried in the 8AM hour isn't worth much. Patty Duke deserves a nice afternoon spotlight. And they now air the flops My Mother the Car the It's About Time late nights. :lol:

I hope Patty Duke, The Addams Family, Mr. Ed, Green Acres and the Beach Party movies find a new home at Me or Decades.


Patty and Adams family is on cable channel FETV and FETV did have Green Acres but they didn't renew it as the company they get rights to it from told them they would be less episodes available in that Package that FETV got so FETV didn't renew it so they got Patty Dukes and Father know best and Adams family

METV did show Mr ed for awhile but their rights to it expire as i think they was only get a short right to Mr Ed.

I wonder what this new African American channel called the Grio TV will be like that is replacing Light TV. Seems like an odd sounding name

I see Light is doing even more schedule shuffling in their last days. Patty Duke's 8AM hour is now at 10AM tomorrow, with a bonus third episode at 11AM. And while Green Acres weeknights at 6:00 flashed across their main page, schedule for tomorrow shows extended movie block preempting it. :lol:

And the Light channel is now completely worthless for me. They have already cut off the option to live stream their network. When I clicked watch now assumed I would be seeing Patty Duke. All you get there is an ad for their replacement station, you jerks could have at least kept the live stream going for what is left of Light's existence. :mad:

Their schedule is still showing up, but they removed all references to Roma Downey and the only video is Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?.

Their schedule is still showing up, but they removed all references to Roma Downey and the only video is Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?.
Do you have any information about Grio TV?

Do you have any information about Grio TV?

I will get information for you if I can find anything.

I will get information for you if I can find anything.
Okay, thank you, MA.

I see it on TitanTV. Looks like it has very limited programming. The same four or five movies on a loop and recent low budget shows like The First Family and Mr Box Office.

What a waste! At least Light TV when it was good had Heartland and Green Acres. And some of the movies they aired were good like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and True Heart (movie with Kirsten Dunst and Zachery Ty Brian playing twins). If they could have put Patty Duke in afternoons as well, that would have made Light even better. I don't know why Roma Downey gave up on this channel so quick and sold it. Although with her husband Mark Burnett involved I am not as surprised. His sticking us with Survivor and its popularity is what forever changed the broadcast TV landscape, which until the 21st century wasn't blighted with reality shows.

Why I think LightTV failed to attract an audience is that I think LightTV was trying to copy the Odyssey Network and PAX TV and The Family Channel and since actress Roma Downey owned LightTV she chose what could work for them and what ideas would not work. But what I think caused LightTV to go downhill is that they never expanded their lineup often and since all TV channels have to add something new and fresh to make the channel a hit to gain an audience LightTV never did that. Take for example when I would glance at LightTV it seemed in the sitcoms all they seemed to show was Green Acres which you can already see on METV and The Patty Duke Show and if LightTV would've added sitcoms like Different Strokes and Charles In Charge or Small Wonder it would've worked for them well. In the game show department I cannot figure why the only game show that LightTV aired was Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader when LightTV could've also added the Monty Hall Let's Make A Deal the Bud Collyer version of Beat The Clock and Chuck Woolery's Scrabble to expand their game show lineup. And in movies I cannot figure out why LightTV recycled the same movies every weekend from The Black Stallion The Black Stallion Returns to All Dogs Go To Heaven when they could've added movies like Little Monsters and Walk Like A Man or some more MGM animated movies would've been better. As for LightTV's replacement I think it will be an exact copy of Bounce and BET and I think that this new channel will fail because I can predict that most of the movies that will air will be all the Madea movies and Tyler Perry movies on the new channel. I think that Byron Allen is trying to be a successful businessman in the TV industry and I think with this new channel he hopes that it will one day make his mark in TV to someday chase his dream of running his very own TV network
Bestie

Why I think LightTV failed to attract an audience is that I think LightTV was trying to copy the Odyssey Network and PAX TV and The Family Channel and since actress Roma Downey owned LightTV she chose what could work for them and what ideas would not work. But what I think caused LightTV to go downhill is that they never expanded their lineup often and since all TV channels have to add something new and fresh to make the channel a hit to gain an audience LightTV never did that. Take for example when I would glance at LightTV it seemed in the sitcoms all they seemed to show was Green Acres which you can already see on METV and The Patty Duke Show and if LightTV would've added sitcoms like Different Strokes and Charles In Charge or Small Wonder it would've worked for them well. In the game show department I cannot figure why the only game show that LightTV aired was Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader when LightTV could've also added the Monty Hall Let's Make A Deal the Bud Collyer version of Beat The Clock and Chuck Woolery's Scrabble to expand their game show lineup. And in movies I cannot figure out why LightTV recycled the same movies every weekend from The Black Stallion The Black Stallion Returns to All Dogs Go To Heaven when they could've added movies like Little Monsters and Walk Like A Man or some more MGM animated movies would've been better. As for LightTV's replacement I think it will be an exact copy of Bounce and BET and I think that this new channel will fail because I can predict that most of the movies that will air will be all the Madea movies and Tyler Perry movies on the new channel. I think that Byron Allen is trying to be a successful businessman in the TV industry and I think with this new channel he hopes that it will one day make his mark in TV to someday chase his dream of running his very own TV network
Bestie
Well Light TV always reminded me of PAX TV (which turned into that trash “I” and later ION) except I used to watch PAX a little more.

THIS TV has already started to air movies NOT from MGM, so the one plus of the purchase is THIS will be airing films from several studios. MOVIES! has tied up the 20th Century Fox and Paramount Library with deals, although in the post ViacomCBS era of Paramount, that deal may have ended.

Okay, thank you, MA.

You're welcome TVLegend.

THIS TV has already started to air movies NOT from MGM, so the one plus of the purchase is THIS will be airing films from several studios. MOVIES! has tied up the 20th Century Fox and Paramount Library with deals, although in the post ViacomCBS era of Paramount, that deal may have ended.

Will they still be airing movies from MGM?

You mention Byron Allen. Wasn't he on show from the 70's-80's ? kind a reality show with ordinary people doing fanatic things. Something like that. Is the same person. the name Skip Stephenson play into him somewhere.???

You mention Byron Allen. Wasn't he on show from the 70's-80's ? kind a reality show with ordinary people doing fanatic things. Something like that. Is the same person. the name Skip Stephenson play into him somewhere.???

Byron Allen was on the show Real People from 1979 until 1984:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_People

It appears that the frndlyTV streaming service which carried LightTV has decided not to carry The Grio TV. Ironically, frndlyTV carries The Weather Channel, which might be co-owned by the same parent company. So, the Grio TV for now is only on the 11 owned Fox stations, and competes against Bounce.

frndlyTV now shows it carries Deck the Hallmark instead.

On a side note,
Also, there appears to be a new streaming service SelectTV that carries feTV, INSP, UPTV, Grit TV, Laff, AXS TV, HDNet Movies and MGM HD in a $8/month package with other channels, and includes ten hours of DVR. Unfortunately, it's not supported yet on Roku. It is supported only on Amazon's Fire Stick 4k devices, not second generation, and more expensive devices like Apple TV.

The Grio TV made it's debut today and all I saw on it was movies and the first movie that they showed was the Mod Squad movie and then it aired the movie Hollywood Shuffle afterwards so I think this is another channel that as I mentioned in my earlier post will go belly up because I think not many people will watch it and I can tell you the ratings will get low in it's debut week and continue to get lower and lower and lower. But what it reminded me of was TV One and I think this channel was made to compete with BET and Bounce. I think Roma Downey made a mistake by selling LightTV to Byron Allen and if LightTV wouldn't have been sold Roma Downey could've put more money into LightTV by adding new programming to keep it alive. I can easily predict the next channel that will be gone will be This TV next and they will probably replace it with another channel and rebrand it as well
Bestie

The Grio TV made it's debut today and all I saw on it was movies and the first movie that they showed was the Mod Squad movie and then it aired the movie Hollywood Shuffle afterwards so I think this is another channel that as I mentioned in my earlier post will go belly up because I think not many people will watch it and I can tell you the ratings will get low in it's debut week and continue to get lower and lower and lower. But what it reminded me of was TV One and I think this channel was made to compete with BET and Bounce. I think Roma Downey made a mistake by selling LightTV to Byron Allen and if LightTV wouldn't have been sold Roma Downey could've put more money into LightTV by adding new programming to keep it alive. I can easily predict the next channel that will be gone will be This TV next and they will probably replace it with another channel and rebrand it as well
Bestie
At least TV ONE airs shows like What’s Happening, The Jeffersons, The Cosby Show, Living Single, Family Matters, In Living Color, The Bernie Mac Show, and Sanford and Son. Grio TV sounds like a total waste.

Right now, there is a channel vacancy where LightTV used to be in my broadcasting neck of the woods.

At least TV ONE airs shows like What’s Happening, The Jeffersons, The Cosby Show, Living Single, Family Matters, In Living Color, The Bernie Mac Show, and Sanford and Son. Grio TV sounds like a total waste.

I'd say Bounce is Grio.TV's more direct competitor since it competes in the digitnet over the air space, but similarly Bounce seems like a better channel, with a mix of sitcoms, talk shows and movies.

While competition is good and all, I'd rather see Bounce gain more traction on providers than there be two digitnets that are close enough in focus but neither prevalent or established enough and struggling to stay viable.

I also don't know if it is necessary for > 1 of these right now too in the digitnet space. It's like shows and movies with black people go the channel that only airs shows with black people, so what ends up happening sometimes is that other channels are freed up from airing content with black people.

Okay, thank you, MA.

Here is some information from one of the recent blog posts, but it’s not much:

New digital subchannel TheGrio.TV has officially launched as of Martin Luther King Jr. weekend and so far two sitcoms are airing: The First Family and Mr. Box Office, both are from Byron Allen, who owns TheGrio.TV. Both series are airing back-to-back in the 9am hour, among other slots during the week, as per the schedule. The network is also airing the drama Jeremiah at 4am. As of now, movies are dominating the lineup. TheGrio.TV replaced Light TV, which aired classic sitcoms like Mister Ed, The Patty Duke Show, Green Acres, Highway to Heaven, Flipper, and game show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Stay tuned for much more information on TheGrio.TV, as hopefully more sitcoms will join the lineup.