 Logo used since 2023 | |
| Type | |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Broadcast area |
|
| Headquarters | Chicago,Illinois |
| Programming | |
| Picture format | 720p (HDTV;widescreen) |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Weigel Broadcasting |
| Parent | Decades LLC |
| Key people |
|
| Sister channels | |
| History | |
| Founded | October 21, 2014; 11 years ago (2014-10-21) |
| Launched |
|
| Former names | Decades (2015–2023) |
| Links | |
| Website | catchycomedy |
| Availability | |
| Terrestrial | |
| SeeList of affiliates | |
| Streaming media | |
| Service(s) | Frndly TV,FuboTV,Philo |
Catchy Comedy, formerly known asDecades, is anAmericandigital broadcasttelevision network owned byWeigel Broadcasting.[2][3] The network, which is mainly carried on thedigital subchannels oftelevision stations, primarily airs classic televisionsitcoms from the 1950s through the 2010s. Established in 2015, the network was previously called Decades.
Through its ownership by Weigel, Catchy Comedy is a sister network toMeTV, and is carried in480i widescreen.
Since fall 2019, the network is carried on Fox-owned stations in 12 markets as part of a multi-year agreement withFox Television Stations, after switching fromCBS-owned stations.[4]
On October 21, 2014,CBS Corporation and Weigel Broadcasting announced the launch of the network, then known as Decades, with plans to debut the network in 2015. Through its part-ownership by CBS Corporation, Decades announced thatowned-and-operated stations of theCBS television network would serve as its initial charternetwork affiliates.[5][6]
The network was the first national multicasting venture byCBS Television Stations. The group did not carry subchannels on any of its television stations prior to 2013. At the time of the Decades announcement, only three of its stations even maintained subchannels (CBS O&OsWCBS-TV inNew York City andKYW-TV inPhiladelphia carried rolling news channels under the "CBS Plus" brand on their respective secondary subchannels, whileindependent stationKTXA inDallas-Fort Worth, Texas carriedMeTV on its second subchannel). In addition,CBS Television Distribution had already maintained a content distribution agreement with Weigel Broadcasting's classic television networkMeTV, which sourced much of its programming from that library.
On January 13, 2015, Weigel Broadcasting confirmed that itsMilwaukee CBS affiliateWDJT-TV would carry the network on its fourth digital subchannel.[7] It would replace the digital news serviceTouchVision.
Decades officially launched at 7:00 a.m.Eastern Time Zone on May 25, 2015, with the series premiere ofThrough the Decades as its inaugural telecast. At the time, the network was available in over 45% of all American households with a television set.[8]
Times for the programming are televised across all six time zones. For example, a show that begins at 8 PMEastern Time, begins at 5 PMPacific Time.
On March 27, 2023, Decades rebranded as Catchy Comedy, focusing on primarily classic sitcoms andsketch comedy variety shows weekdays with comedy marathons on weekends.[9]
Decades primarily relied on programming from the extensive content library owned by CBS Television Distribution,[5] which includes the pre-2006Paramount Television library, which CBS had acquired as a result of absorbing Paramount's syndication unit in 2006 through its split fromViacom into a separate company (CBS and Viacom re-merged to formViacomCBS in 2019), along with series fromDesilu Productions,Bing Crosby Productions,Don Fedderson Productions,QM Productions,Spelling Television andRepublic Pictures Television. Decades also carried series and movies fromNBCUniversal,Warner Bros.,Disney (20th Century Studios),Sony Pictures,Paramount Pictures,Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,Lionsgate,Sonar Entertainment, thePeter Rodgers Organization,Shout! Factory,The Carsey-Werner Company and thepublic domain.
In an early effort to stand out from other "retro TV" multicast services (such asMeTV andAntenna TV), the Monday through Friday schedule initially featured a block of programming based on a daily theme, withinterstitial programs to highlight the theme. Each six-hour block of programming was repeated four times a day and typically included a feature film, episodes of theme related television programs, and biographical programs featuring celebrities, actors and actresses, musicians, athletes, and public figures of interest. The theme blocks were bookended withThrough the Decades, an hour-long program hosted and narrated byBill Kurtis (who formerly served as a presenter for Chicago CBS O&O WBBM-TV and CBS News) that explores the events and news from a particular day or period in history, using archival footage that CBS owns through services such asCBS News and CBS Television Distribution'ssyndicated newsmagazine programEntertainment Tonight.[3][5][10]
As Decades, the network's Saturday and Sunday schedules featuredmarathons of classic television series. Beginning on Saturday at 12:00 p.m. (ET), forty-two consecutive hours are devoted to a particular series, which is usually sourced from either the CBS Television Distribution library of shows or a show Weigel Broadcasting has a contract to carry (such as one of the shows it broadcasts on MeTV).[11]
Airings ofThe Dick Cavett Show were added to the schedule February 1, 2016, within the daily themed block, as appropriate. Episodes from Cavett's late-nightABC talk show from 1969 to 1974, as well as his later interview series onPBS,USA, andCNBC were all made available for airing.[12]
On November 1, 2016, a major change was made to the programming lineup, with the daily programming block reduced to two airings daily (one from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, the other in overnight) as the 2:00 p.m. to midnight (ET) time period was converted to a "daily binge" with a different show airing each day. During the month of November, a different "cop show" was aired each weekday.[13]
A further shift in direction from the original channel concept came on December 5, 2016, when the network added two daily airings of theNBC seriesRowan & Martin's Laugh-In, the first breaking the daily binge in half at 6:00 p.m. (ET) and a different episode at the conclusion of the binge time block.[14]
Through the Decades, hosted byBill Kurtis,[15] is a retrospective-type show that aired on Decades. Each day's edition of the show featured events that happened on that date in history.
The show debuted in September 2016.[16] After the network rebranded to Catchy Comedy on March 27, 2023, the program was cancelled; notably, however, Weigel would continue to use the show as anE/I compliant program on some of their independent affiliates, most notably flagship stationWCIU-TV inChicago, rerunning the episodes on the same days as original airings, before removing it the following year.
In 2017, the theme and binge programming on weekdays was discontinued altogether and the network became mostly sitcom-focused, featuring the "Television Across the Decades" block, where comedies from the 1950s through the 1980s air weekdays from mid-morning into early evening, and late evenings through the overnight hours featuring the "Smart Comedy" block, highlighted by classic sitcoms such asThe Dick Van Dyke Show,Cheers,Taxi,The Honeymooners, andThe Abbott and Costello Show.
While the bulk of the lineup was primarily sitcoms, there were deviations (most notably in prime time) which featured the classic variety programThe Ed Sullivan Show,Through the Decades andThe Dick Cavett Show. Also, the weekend binge marathons continued, with a single series (regardless of genre) airing for 42 hours straight on Saturdays and Sundays.
The final program to air under the Decades name wasThe Mod Squad, which was the featured show of the March 25–26, 2023, weekend binge.
At 6 a.m. Eastern Time on March 27, 2023, Decades was rebranded asCatchy Comedy, primarily focusing on the broadcasting of sitcoms (with occasional broadcasts of somevariety shows featuringsketch comedy), with the series premiere episode ofFull House as the first program which was shown. In addition, some programs are shortened, the ending credits are compressed while the last scenes are shown. This represented a change from Decades, which showed the program without modifying them.
The weekend "binge" marathons were carried over, but now, they are strictly comedy-focused, and in January 2025, they were only broadcast on Sundays after the establishment of a set Saturday schedule.
The network's only deviation from comedy is its fulfilment of itsFCC obligations which consists of airings ofE/I programming on Saturday mornings from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m. (ET).[17]
At the time of its launch in May 2015, Decades had current or pending affiliation agreements with 35 television stations which covered at least 44% of the United States.[8] Weigel Broadcasting handled the responsibility of affiliate distribution to stations outside the core CBS O&O group.[3]
Decades was offered to stations on abarter basis, in which the network and the local affiliate shared the responsibility of selling advertising inventory and split the allocated hourly commercial time. CBS affiliates and their owners held theright of first refusal to carry the network in their local market, before it was offered to other network-affiliated stations.[3] The network is also available on localcable television providers (most likely through theirdigital cable tiers, as is the case with most multicast networks) and othermultichannel television in the United States at the discretion of the affiliate's parent station.[18]
CBS Television Stations initially planned to launch Decades on all 16 CBS owned-and-operated stations (including two that operate assatellite stations ofMinneapolis O&OWCCO-TV). Not all of the CBS Television Stations outlets were announced to carry Decades initially, asCW owned-and-operated stations in markets where CBS Corporation did not own the CBS affiliate (such asWTOG andKSTW) were originally excluded from its initial list of affiliates. The standalone CW O&Os were later added as charter stations by late April 2015. In theChicago market, where CBS Television Stations and Weigel Broadcasting each own television stations, the network was carried on CBS O&OWBBM-TV, instead of one of Weigel's three stations in that market,WCIU-TV,WWME-CD andWMEU-CD. (A similar situation existed in that market withMovies!, in whichWFLD, owned by Weigel's partner in that network,Fox Television Stations, carries the network in lieu of any of Weigel's outlets.) Conversely, Weigel-ownedWBME-CD carries the network in the Milwaukee market.[7]WMYS-LD inSouth Bend, Indiana, was the other Weigel-owned station to carry the network.
On January 9, 2015, Decades reached its first affiliation agreement with a station outside the core CBS Television Stations, through a deal withMedia General for its ABC affiliate inGreen Bay, Wisconsin, affiliateWBAY-TV (which was previously affiliated with CBS from 1953 to 1992). WBAY planned to carry the marathon blocks on its third subchannel as a replacement for the Live Well Network.[2] However, on January 13, as a result ofWalt Disney Television's decision to temporarily continue Live Well Network's national operations, WBAY announced that its 2.3 subchannel would not switch to Decades until after LWN's planned March 2015 shutdown date.[19] It eventually started carryingIon Television as part of a group deal with WBAY ownerMedia General to carry the network in markets without an Ion station. When theE.W. Scripps Co. purchased the Ion Television network in 2020, Ion moved to a newly-assigned digital subchannel, 26.5, on competitorWGBA-TV. A few days later, WBAY-TV started airing Decades on channel 2.6.
On September 3, 2018, Decades was replaced on CBS-owned stations withStart TV, a new Weigel-owned diginet focusing on crime dramas with female leads.[20] Weigel maintained its commitment to Decades, with the company's owned-and-operated stations taking over in Los Angeles and Chicago. When it began airing on Fox-owned television stations, Decades moved toKTTV in Los Angeles. In Chicago, Decades continued to be seen on Weigel-owned WMEU-CD and WCIU-TV.
On April 19, 2022, Decades began airing on theFrndly TV live streaming service.[21]
