Now that the ThisTV network is no longer available in the Fargo-Grand Forks-Moorhead TV network, the question is, can over the air TV watchers in this media market have a venue for watching movies?
The answer is: yes, but it is much more limited.
ThisTV is a digital sub channel network that is now available in a number of TV markets. Digital sub channels are an outgrowth of the mandate for broadcasters to broadcast digitally. They now have the ability to split their signal and to offer a different programming stream than their main channel. ThisTV is a programming service offere3d by Weigel Broadcasting that many stations carry on one of their digital sub channels. ThisTV primarily offers movies on a 24-hour basis. As of December 31st, 2012, KVLY, Channel 11 in Fargo, replaced ThisTV with MeTV, a classic TV channel. It airs on digital subchannel 11.2.
So, if you want to be an over-the-air viewer in this TV market, you can still see movies, with commercial interruptions, but the options are a little bit more limited.
For instance, MeTV, on Saturday nights at 10:00 PM Central does offers black and white horror movies on the Svengoolie show. This is a show that features movies hosted by host Svengoolie.
The CW channel, which is carried on WDAY, Channel 6.2 also has movies. There are back to back movies shown on both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturdays, the movies start at 3:00 PM and go to 7:00 PM. On Sunday, they start at 1:00 PM and on Sunday they run from 1:00 PM until about 6:30 PM.
There is also the My TV affiliate which is available on Channel 27 in Grand Forks, and on Channel 33 in Fargo. Its programming schedule says that there are movies available from Noon until 4:00 PM Central on Saturdays. It’s not certain whether this is up to date as the programming schedule says that it was last updated in 2011. The station does have flash ads on its front page that advertise specific movies playing on Sunday Nights at 7:00 PM, so this is probably the more accurate guide to go buy. All of the movie venues mentioned in this article, except Svengoolie’s are of fairly recent vintage, so you won’t see any black and white classics such as ThisTV carried on its schedule. But, this is what is available for now for the over the air movie viewer in this market.
Hopefully, ThisTV will return at some point to the Fargo-Grand Forks-Moorhead market and there will be much more available for movie viewing on broadcast TV in this market
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