Classic TV shows get new life on digital airwaves

When cable TV was growing in the 1980s and '90s, many of its programs were past hits from the lineups of ABC, CBS and NBC. "The Andy Griffith Show" was the top show on Turner Broadcasting's TBS. Viacom made classic TV a big business by packaging series from the 1950s, '60s and '70s on Nickelodeon's Nick at Nite, which later spawned TV Land. But many cable networks abandoned classic TV shows once the baby boomers who watched them moved out of the 18-to-49 age group that advertisers covet most. That's created an opening for multicast TV networks -- the channels that viewers can watch over the air for free with a digital antenna -- to come to their rescue.

Unplug your cable system and find MeTV, which stands for Memorable Entertainment Television. The network airs hits such as "M*A*S*H," "Bonanza" and "Star Trek," and averages about 521,000 viewers in daytime -- higher than all but nine national cable networks. From 5 to 11 p.m., MeTV ranked 20th with 667,000 viewers compared with those networks. Other media companies have also turned to classic TV as a low-cost programming solution for multicast channels, which now reportedly take in more than $250 million a year in ad revenue.