Movies!


Movies! is an American free-to-air television network that is owned as a joint venture between Weigel Broadcasting and the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of Fox Corporation. The network's programming emphasizes feature films. The network's programming and advertising operations are based in Weigel Broadcasting's headquarters on North Halsted Street in Chicago, Illinois.
It is available in several markets through digital subchannel affiliations with free-to-air television stations, as well as through carriage on pay television providers through a local affiliate of the network. Movies! provides programming 24 hours a day and broadcasts in the widescreen picture format, available in either standard definition or high definition depending on the station's preference.
The network competes with two similarly formatted broadcast networks: This TV and GetTV ; feature films compose the primary source and children's programming the ancillary source of programming on both networks, though This TV also broadcasts classic television series. However unlike This TV and GetTV, Movies! does not edit the films aired to make room for more commercials. A notation in the Movies! title card stating no film alterations is aired at the beginning of every film broadcast.

Background

On January 28, 2013, Fox Television Stations and Weigel Broadcasting announced the formation of Movies!, with plans to launch the network on Memorial Day of that year. Movies! officially launched on May 27, 2013, at 8:10 a.m. Eastern Time, initially debuting on the subchannels of both of the network's co-parents: five Fox and 11 MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated stations owned by Fox Television Stations, and two stations owned by Weigel. Its programming was inaugurated by a ten-minute clip introducing the network, followed by the first film to be telecast on Movies!, the 1975 film Western Take a Hard Ride.

Programming

Movies

Described as presenting "a variety of theatrical motion pictures in a new, viewer and advertiser friendly format, not seen on broadcast television to date", films featured on Movies! as of 2020 primarily consist of releases from Warner Bros., but the network also shows content from Sony Pictures Entertainment, ViacomCBS, Shout! Factory, ITV Studios, ReTV, Peter Rodgers Organization, Multicom Entertainment Group and Proven Entertainment. Before January 2020, the network primarily aired releases from 20th Century Fox. The network's film roster concentrates mainly on classic films from the 1920s to the 1980s, though in recent years, films from the 1990s and select films from the 2000s and 2010s are also played. As of August 2019, Movies! broadcasts featured movie presentations such as Noir to Die For all day every Thursday, Saturday Morning Movies! consisting of films from the Hopalong Cassidy, Laurel and Hardy and Blondie franchises, Popcorn Movies! every Saturday afternoon, Definitive Movies! every Saturday night and Sunday Night Noir. Movies! presents many of its features in their original aspect ratio whenever possible, which are either presented in the or letterboxed format depending on the affiliate's preference in transmitting the subchannel. Scope films, however, are often reformatted from to 1.85:1.
Films that are broadcast on the network are edited for graphic profanity and inappropriate violent or sexual content, but are not edited for running times to fit in a set time block; start and end times for films airing on the network are influenced by a combination of the film's original running time and the commercial breaks inserted within the broadcast, with airtimes for films varying between the conventional top-and-bottom-of-the-hour scheduling and incremental airtimes in margins of five minutes that more closely mirror the scheduling structures of premium cable channels than those of other advertiser-supported networks.

Children's programming

In order to meet requirements imposed by the Federal Communications Commission on the amount of educational programming content that a broadcast station must air each week, Movies! airs a three-hour block of children's programs that were originally distributed for syndication on Sunday mornings. This allows its affiliates to carry the network's full schedule without having to purchase E/I programming from the syndication market to comply with the rules.

Affiliates

As of July 2014, Movies! has current or pending affiliation agreements with television stations in 43 media markets encompassing 22 states and the District of Columbia, covering approximately 49% of the United States. Fox Television Stations and Weigel Broadcasting launched Movies! in markets served by a station owned-and-operated by the Fox network or its sister programming service MyNetworkTV. Not all of the Fox Television Stations outlets carried Movies! at launch, WJZY in Charlotte did not begin carrying Movies! until July 1, 2014, due to an existing affiliation agreement with Antenna TV.
In Chicago—where Fox Television Stations and Weigel Broadcasting each own television stations—Fox-owned WPWR-TV serves as that market's charter affiliate of the network, instead of one of Weigel's three stations in that market. This makes Movies! the first Weigel-owned network in which the company's Chicago flagship stations do not serve as affiliates. WBND-LD in South Bend, Indiana carries Movies! on its third digital subchannel; WMLW-TV in Milwaukee carried the network from its launch until August 4, 2014, when Movies! moved to a newly created secondary subchannel of ABC affiliate WISN-TV. Following the WISN deal, that station's owner Hearst Television signed affiliation agreements on a piecemeal basis to add Movies! to select stations, mainly those affiliated with networks other than ABC, during late 2014 and early 2015.
In addition to its carriage on the Fox- and Weigel-owned outlets at the network's launch, the network is also carried on the digital subchannels of television stations owned by other broadcasting companies. Soon after its launch, Movies! reached distribution agreements with several broadcasting groups to add the network on the subchannels of some of their stations. The first stations outside of the Fox and Weigel outlets to sign deals to carry the network were KFFV in Seattle, WLWC in Providence and KPXJ in Shreveport in October 2013, with the three stations adding the network between November 10 and December 10. The following month, in November 2013, Movies! signed affiliation agreements with nine stations owned by Bonten Media Group, Cocola Broadcasting and the Maranatha Broadcasting Company. Four additional stations, through deals with companies such as the Nexstar Broadcasting Group and Saga Communications, added the network between May and October 2014.

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