New Digital Subchannel from Sony Called getTV Launching in Fall 2013; Final Season of Futurama Begins in June on Comedy Central

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

New Digital Subchannel from Sony Called getTV Launching in Fall 2013; Final Season of Futurama Begins in June on Comedy Central

The digital subchannel space is now more crowded. We told you about Movies! launching on Fox owned networks digital subchannels later this spring (late May), now we have another movie-themed network, Sony Pictures Television (SPT) Networks announced plans to launch getTV, a new US digital broadcast television network airing classic movies, in the fall of 2013. The third wholly owned Sony-branded channel in the US, getTV will premier on the digital subchannels of Univision Television Group owned television stations. SPT is in active discussions with other stations groups in advance of launch. getTV will bring viewers the best movies from Hollywood's golden era. Programming will be primarily from the Sony Pictures library, featuring more than 3,500 films, including 12 Best Picture Academy Award® winners. A sampling of movies from the library include: Lawrence of Arabia, It Happened One Night, and The Bridge on the River Kwai. getTV will be carried on the digital subchannels on Univision Television Group owned television stations in 24 markets, including 17 of the top 20 DMAs. These DMAs account for 44% of all US television households, representing more than 50 million homes.

getTV will join the new Movies! and existing networks which air classic TV and/or movies like Antenna TV, MeTV, ThisTV, Bounce TV, Cozi TV and RTV in this space. We'll have more on this network soon, but it doesn't appear it will be newsworthy for us since there will be no sitcoms or TV series like on Antenna TV, MeTV, ThisTV, Cozi TV and RTV. But of course stay with us for continued updates on this network and all of those other ones as well.

Futurama rockets into space for the (second) final time as the Emmy(R) Award-winning series will conclude its long history with this summer's all-new season. The thirteen-episode summer run will premiere on Comedy Central with back-to-back episodes on Wednesday, June 19 at 10:00pm with the emotional series finale scheduled for Wednesday, September 4. Special guest stars for the final season include Larry Bird, Dan Castellaneta, Sarah Silverman, George Takei, Adam West and Burt Ward. The show's entire original voice cast will be returning. Including the yet-to-air season, this will bring the total number of episodes in Futurama's storied history to 140. Comedy Central will celebrate the final season of Futurama with a host of bonus content on cc.com including weekly episode previews, highlights and photo galleries featuring concept artwork from the upcoming episodes. The site also contains clips from the entire library of Futurama episodes and features exclusive interviews with the show's cast, as well as with Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, plus a "making of an episode" mini-documentary. Later this month, Comedy Central will begin its summer-long celebration of the final season with the launch of "Countdown to Futurama" on Facebook, where its fan base has grown from one million "likes" prior to its 2010 resurrection on Comedy Central to over 26 million "likes" today, making it one of the top television pages on Facebook. The "Countdown" celebration will feature new and exclusive content daily, including clips, episode stills, character designs and more. In addition, the celebration will extend to the Comedy Central Tumblr which will offer a "Futurama Fanarama" feature spotlighting fan tributes to the series and its final season.

The series first aired on Fox from 1999-2003 and then was brought back in 2007 with four direct-to-DVD movies that subsequently aired as 30-minute episodes on Comedy Central. Based on their success, Comedy Central ordered new seasons of the series which made a triumphant return to television in June 2010. Over the course of its storied run, Futurama has earned six Emmy(R) Awards--including two Outstanding Animated Program, seven Annie Awards, two Environmental Media Awards and two Writer's Guild of America Awards.