TV Land (originally
Nick at Nite's TV Land) is an
American cable television network launched
April 29,
1996.
[Bianculli, David, "Oldies Net Loaded with Goodies"; New York Daily News, March 19, 1996]It is owned by
MTV Networks, a division of
Viacom, which also owns
MTV and
Nickelodeon. In
2008, TV Land launched a prime time programming block known as
TV Land Prime, which airs newer programs such as
3rd Rock from the Sun and
Scrubs, and the network's original programming efforts.
Origins
Building on the success and popularity of Nick at Nite, TV Land premiered in the first quarter of 1996, delivering classic situation comedies, dramas, variety shows and memorable TV programming 24 hours a day. The network featured a variety of television programming from the 1950s through the 1990s. Its inaugural season featured the Emmy Award-winning
Hill Street Blues,
St. Elsewhere and
The Ed Sullivan Show, and the popular series
Gunsmoke and
The Honeymooners. Great detectives were featured every Saturday, with programs including
Dog and Cat,
Burke's Law,
Nero Wolfe (1981) and
Ace Crawford, Private Eye. "TV Land Goes West" presented
Shane,
Barbary Coast,
Have Gun, Will Travel and
Best of the West. "Hooterville Saturday" featured
Petticoat Junction and
Green Acres; and "Sunday in the Barracks" laughed with the military in
The Phil Silvers Show and
Hogan's Heroes.
["Nick at Night's TV Land joins U.S. Satellite Broadcasting Lineup"; Business Wire, April 30, 1996]
The network initially was a mix of classic TV and short-lived series, often from the
Paramount library.
[TV Land archives on Freewebs (1996–2004)] In 1999, a deal with
Universal provided the programmers the ability to "cherry-pick" from a variety of series including
Emergency!,
Kojak and
The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries.
In February 1999 TV Land's primetime averaged a 1.0 in cable homes, tying ESPN for 10th place among all cable networks. Its siblings, MTV and VH1, tied for 17th and 26th place, respectively.
"That February rating put TV Land into the top 10 for the first time since it began operating," John Dempsey reported for
Variety, "and opened the eyes of the cable industry to the rich vein of golden-oldie TV shows that distributors are mining for an audience of nostalgia buffs and kids who are stumbling across the series for the first time."
[Dempsey, John, "It's Boom(er) Time for TV Land"; Variety, March 8–14, 1999]
TV Land celebrated its 10th anniversary on April 29, 2006.
Programming
[
Land Christmas logo.png|thumb|right|200px|[[Christmas] version of the TV Land logo used since 2004.]]
Currently, TV Land's programming primarily consists of
reruns of
television series such as
All In The Family,
Leave It to Beaver,
The Beverly Hillbillies,
Good Times,
The Jeffersons,
Sanford and Son,
The Andy Griffith Show,
Bonanza,
Gunsmoke,
The Cosby Show,
Green Acres,
M*A*S*H,
The Brady Bunch,
Three's Company,
Just Shoot Me!,
Hogan's Heroes, and most recently
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
For several years the station broadcast classic
advertisements, called "TV Land Retromercials." Examples of advertisements aired are the "Mamma mia, that's a spicy
meatball!" from
Alka-Seltzer and "
In Soviet Georgia" from
Dannon yogurt, as well as the animated
Tootsie Pop owl. Some retromercials have included future stars like
Judd Hirsch,
Rene Russo,
Roy Scheider and
Jodie Foster. Interspersed with the classic commercials were fictional retro-style commercials for various substances, almost always brand named "Twip." These were dumped in recent years altogether.. The
Retro Television Network, a station with a similar premise to the early TV Land, but available in far fewer venues, uses a practice of showing retromercials. In early years, current commercials were not shown on TV Land. Also featured frequently during "commercial" breaks were
CBS News'
In the News segments from the 1970s and 1980s.
Starting in 2007, the network began targeting
Genexers and their progeny, airing programming from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, along with an increase in "original programming" and the introduction of recent (1980s or later) movies on Saturday nights, essentially abandoning the Baby boomers and orienting the station to the first MTV watchers. The network no longer labels itself as a "Classic TV" network.
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was acquired in August 2007, and
Just Shoot Me!,
Mad About You,
Murphy Brown and
Scrubs were all recent shows acquired for 2008.
Designing Women was borrowed from Nick at Nite and began airing in October, 2007. The network plans to begin airing original programming in 2008 with a revival of
The WB's
High School Reunion (which features reunions of older classes than the original series) and a modeling show. Accompanying this strategy was a refresh of the network's graphic identity, designed and conceived by
Trollback + Company, who also created its earlier look in 2000. Original programing, has included
Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg,
TV Land Legends: The 60 Minutes Interviews and
I Pity The Fool with
Mr. T. Most of these series have lasted only a few episodes.
During its first three years the station broadcast original programming called "Sixty Second Sitcoms". These were minute long parodies of sitcoms from various TV eras which also contained fake opening and end credits, and concluded with "This has been a TVLand Presentation" logo. The shows included "The Gaveltons", (a black and white segment based on
Father Knows Best type comedies, concerning a family that uses the law to solve typical sitcom problems), and "Spin & Cutter" (a parody of
Perfect Strangers style 70s and 80s buddy shows that featured characters saying things like "What could possibly be worse than this?" followed by the picture spinning and a cut to a scene featuring another added element and the other character saying "You had to ask, didn't you?"). Each of the series had several segments and ran alternating with the Retromercials.
TV Land often airs marathon weekends devoted to a single program. In the early 2000s, TV Land aired special programming blocks on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day: the final day of the year would revolve around final episodes of classic television series, and the first day of the new year would air exclusively pilot episodes.
When a program deemed particularly important is airing on another network, TV Land would sometimes air nonsense programming (such as footage of staff members holding signs or wearing T-shirts) to encourage viewers to watch the network programming. Recent examples include the
series finales of
Friends (2004) and
Everybody Loves Raymond (2005). The network went dark during the last episode of
Seinfeld (1998).
TV Land President Larry Jones says that Marshall and Williams will soon begin filming a loosely-scripted series pilot together. They’ll be living together in Penny Marshall’s home. Described as a buddy comedy,
Penny and Cindy, the
Laverne & Shirley spinoff, will air on TV Land. Gay Rosenthal Prods. is producing the project while Jim Vallely (
The Golden Girls,
Arrested Development) is the writer and executive producer.
Harry Shearer is the regular announcer for the network promos. The original announcer was DJ
Dan Ingram.
In 2008 TV Land added three hours of
infomercials to the morning lineup, airing Monday through Friday from 6:00-9:00 am (ET).
[TV Land Show Schedule]
TV Land Awards
TV Land has been the broadcast home for the TV Land Awards show since the show's inception in 2003. The TV Land Awards are celebration of past classic TV shows and TV stars. The TV Land Awards previously broadcasted simultaneously on Nick at Nite.
External links
