Weigel Broadcasting

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, the company was the subject of a successful hostile takeover at the hands of the Shapiro family.

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.

Weigel's MeTV format originated as a programming block that debuted on January 6, 2003, on television station WFBT-CA (channel 23) in Chicago, Illinois, an independent station that otherwise featured an ethnic programming format.

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 MeTV for four years before it and the independent format of low-power WMLW-CA were switched around in August 2012, becoming WMLW-TV.

Network expansion

In July 2008, Weigel announced the creation of This TV, a national subchannel network, operated as a joint venture with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

In early August 2008, Weigel 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. However, in the absence of action by the Federal Communications Commission, the deal was called off in August 2009.

Weigel launched You and Me This Morning, an Interstitial program lifestyle news program in fourth quarter (fall) 2009 on WCIU-TV's first two subchannels.

At the end of 2009, Broadcasting & Cable gave Weigel 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 MeTV and This TV on subchannels nationwide.

On November 22, 2010, Weigel announced that they would take the MeTV concept national and compete fully with RTV and Antenna TV, while complementing its successful sister network This TV.

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 airs on WCIU digital subchannel 26.2, replacing MeTV, 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.

On January 4, 2011, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Weigel announced plans to distribute MeTV nationwide.

On January 28, 2013, Weigel entered into a partnership with Fox Television Stations to create a new digital subchannel network called Movies!, which was 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.

Post-spectrum auction expansion

On July 19, 2017, Weigel agreed to acquire Cedar City, Utah station KCSG for $1.1 million. The sale converted the station in a H&I owned-and-operated station, though the possibility of Weigel's other networks being contained to it is also possible. It was Weigel's first station purchase outside of a state along Lake Michigan, as all of its properties were in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. This sale closed December 5, 2017.

On September 8, 2017, it was announced that Weigel agreed to purchase Los Angeles, California station KAZA-TV for $9 million. The same day also saw the announcement of the purchase of KNLC in St. Louis, a religious station holding a commercial license, for $3.75 million. Many of its purchases since 2017 have been made through its LLC for WMLW. It sold that station's spectrum in the 2016 FCC auction for $69.7 million, with WMLW itself re-transitioning to the spectrum of WBME-CD. KNLC's former owners continue to maintain a right to the station's second subchannel to carry their schedule as a part of the sale to Weigel.

On October 18, 2017, Weigel agreed to acquire KAXT-CD and KTLN-TV, in San Francisco and KVOS-TV and KFFV in Seattle, from OTA Broadcasting in a $23.2 million deal. The Seattle deal was completed, while the San Francisco completion took until April 15, 2019, as both KAXT-CD and KTLN-TV are involved in a spectrum transition resulting from the 2016 FCC auction.

On July 18, 2018, CBS Television Stations and Weigel Broadcasting announced the formation of Start TV, with plans to launch the network on Labor Day of that year (September 3). The network focuses on women-led police procedurals and procedural dramas.

On May 30, 2019, Marquee Broadcasting agreed to sell KREG-TV (formerly a satellite of KREX-TV) to Weigel Broadcasting for $2 million. Once the sale closed, the station became an H&I owned-and-operated station, and likely be positioned as Weigel's station in the Denver market (many stations surrounding Denver have used cable and satellite carriage to take advantage of the larger market reach).

September 1, 2019, saw WCIU-TV taking over the affiliation for The CW in Chicago as "CW 26", replacing Fox-owned WPWR-TV and resulting in the move of some programming and that station's former "The U" branding to WMEU-CD.

Major assets

Television stations

Stations arranged alphabetically by state and by market area. Most of the stations are categorized into separate limited partnerships for licensing purposes, with many of Weigel's post-2017 deals using the WMLW limited partnership as a direct result of the profits from that station's spectrum sale.

Notes:

(**) - Indicates stations built and signed on by Weigel.

Television networks

Catchy Comedy (launched on May 25, 2015, as Decades; rebranded as Catchy Comedy on March 27, 2023; focus on classic sitcoms)

Dabl (launched on September 9, 2019, with a female-targeted lifestyle format; owned by CBS Media Ventures; managed by Weigel since 2023; since 2023, focuses on black sitcoms)

H&I – Heroes & Icons (launched on September 28, 2014; on WCIU-TV, WMLW-TV; focus on action/adventure, westerns, crime dramas, sci-fi, and superhero series)

MeTV – Memorable Entertainment Television (launched on January 6, 2003, as a block on WFBT-CA; launched on January 1, 2005, as a program format in Chicago on WWME-CA; launched on December 15, 2010, as a national network; focus on classic programming)

MeTV+ (launched on May 15, 2021; MeTV brand extension with additional series)

MeTV Toons (launched on June 25, 2024; partnership with content from Warner Bros. Discovery; focus on classic animation)

Movies! (launched on May 27, 2013; joint venture with Fox Television Stations; focus on feature films)

Start TV (launched on September 3, 2018; joint venture with CBS News and Stations; focus on women-led dramas, police and legal procedurals)

Story Television (launched on March 28, 2022; focus on history)

WEST – Western Entertainment Series Television (launched on September 29, 2025; focus on classic TV westerns)

Radio station

WRME-LD 87.7FM – branded as "MeTV FM" (Chicago, Illinois; local marketing agreement with Venture Technologies Group) (also broadcasts TV signal on digital TV channel 6)