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Weigel Broadcasting Company (a.k.a. Weigel Broadcasting) is an American television broadcasting company. The company is based in Chicago, Illinois, alongside its flagship station WCIU-TV (Channel 26), at 26 North Halsted Street in the Greektown neighborhood. == History == The company was founded by Chicago broadcasting veteran John Weigel, whose career dated back to the 1930s. With $1,000 of his own money, and another $1,000 from his attorney, Daniel J. McCarthy, Weigel bought the broadcasting license for what became the first UHF television station in the Chicago area. WCIU signed on the air on February 6, 1964. One year later, in 1965, Weigel Broadcasting was the subject of a successful hostile takeover at the hands of the Shapiro family.〔(John Weigel - Man of UHF ), ''The Video Veteran/Chicago Television''〕 Over the years, the company began to acquire and also launch new stations in the adjacent markets of Milwaukee and South Bend, at first by placing WCIU translators in those markets to gain a foothold in each market, before programming the stations independently. Weigel would end up an unexpected beneficiary of the television industry realignment of 1994-95. Full-power independent station WDJT-TV in Milwaukee, which had only signed on five years earlier, ended up with the CBS affiliation in late 1994. WBND-LP became the home of ABC programming in South Bend the next year. In both cases, the longtime affiliates of the networks in those markets--WITI in Milwaukee and WSJV in South Bend--switched to Fox, and the Weigel-owned stations secured 11th-hour affiliation deals after no other viable replacement affiliates surfaced. Also in that same year, WCIU dropped the Spanish-language Univision network and became Chicago's only true full-power independent station when WGN-TV and WPWR-TV joined the WB and UPN networks respectively, while WGBO-TV became a Univision-owned station. These changes allowed WCIU to pursue sports rights and syndicated programming not previously available, ultimately giving WCIU some strength in the market. In April 2008, Weigel completed the purchase of WJJA-TV in Racine, Wisconsin, which gave the company its second full-power station in the Milwaukee market. The station carried a local version of Me-TV for four years before it and the independent format of low-power WMLW-CA were switched around in August 2012, becoming WMLW-TV. In July 2008, Weigel announced the creation of This TV, a national subchannel network, operated as a joint venture of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Weigel.〔(MGM Launches This TV Network ), ''MGM Mediaroom'', July 28, 2008〕 In early August 2008, Weigel Broadcasting agreed to sell all three of its South Bend stations, WBND-LP, WCWW-LP and WMYS-LP, to Schurz Communications, the longtime owner of the local CBS affiliate WSBT-TV, for undisclosed terms.〔(WSBT Purchases Three Low-Power Stations ), ''Broadcasting & Cable'', August 4, 2008〕 However, in the absence of action by the Federal Communications Commission, the deal was called off in August 2009. Weigel Broadcasting is launching ''You and Me This Morning'', a program that features entertainment news.〔(Weigel Launching Morning Content Mix ), ''Broadcasting & Cable'', July 7, 2009〕〔(Weigel's WCIU Getting Into A.M. News Fray -- In A Small, Unconventional Way ), ''Chicago Tribune'', July 6, 2009〕 At the end of 2009, ''Broadcasting & Cable'' gave Weigel Broadcasting its first annual Multi-Platform Broadcaster of the Year award. The company makes efficient use of digital TV's multicast capabilities, with one main channel and four subchannels for WCIU in Chicago, and Me-TV and This TV on subchannels nationwide. On November 22, 2010, Weigel announced that they would take the Me-TV concept national and compete fully with RTV and Antenna TV, while complementing its successful sister network This TV.〔(Weigel Broadcasting Taking Me-TV National ), ''Chicago Tribune'', November 22, 2010〕〔(Weigel Broadcasting's Me-TV Goes National ), ''Broadcasting & Cable'', November 23, 2010〕 On December 1, 2010, WCIU dropped their FBT foreign broadcasting digital subchannel (with some of that programming eventually to be moved to Polnet Communications' WPVN-CA) and is currently airing a simulcast of WCIU-TV on WCIU digital subchannel 26.2. The new digital subchannel, The U Too, was officially launched on January 5, 2011. The new digital network will be airing on WCIU digital subchannel 26.2, replacing Me-TV, which moved to WCIU digital subchannel 26.3 on December 15, 2010, and mainly consists of other purchased programming without room on the main WCIU schedule, second runs of WCIU programming or programming burned off due to low ratings.〔〔(WCUU Launches The U Too Subchannel ), ''Broadcasting & Cable'', October 5, 2010〕 On January 4, 2011, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Weigel Broadcasting announced plans to distribute Me-TV nationwide.〔(MGM, Weigel Taking Me-TV Nationwide ), ''Broadcasting & Cable'', January 4, 2011〕〔(MGM Launches Classic TV Service to Roar Like the Fonz ), ''Los Angeles Times'', January 4, 2011〕 On January 28, 2013, Weigel entered into a partnership with Fox Television Stations to create a new digital subchannel network called Movies!, which is expected to debut on all of Fox's owned-and-operated stations in the spring of 2013. On May 13, 2013, Weigel announced that Tribune Broadcasting would take over operations of This TV on November 1, and that the channel would move to a WGN-TV subchannel following the changes.〔(Good Times for Digi-Nets...But We've Seen This Movie Before ), B&C, 5 August 2013, Retrieved August 6, 2013〕 On July 1, 2013, Weigel premiered the new subchannel service TouchVision, which provides a rolling news and information service designed for television, mobile and tablet platforms starting on WDJT-DT4, after Milwaukee real estate agency Shorewest Realtors ended their time-lease on the channel space to concentrate on an Internet on-demand channel instead. TouchVision is based out of Weigel's Chicago facilities under the LLC "Think Televisual", and is run by former radio and Tribune executive Lee Abrams and Brandon Davis. On September 29, 2014, Weigel launched Heroes & Icons a new digital subchannel which specializes in reruns of classic television series and films. Heroes & Icons, abbreviated H&I, aims to attract a generally male audience with shows from the genres of action, police, detective, western, science fiction, superhero, and war and military. On October 21, 2014, Weigel and CBS announced the launch of a new digital subchannel service called Decades, scheduled to launch on all CBS O&O stations in 2015. The channel will be co-owned by Weigel and CBS, with Weigel being responsible for distribution to stations outside CBS Television Stations. It will air programs from the extensive library of CBS Television Distribution, including archival footage from CBS News. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Weigel Broadcasting」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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