The Nostalgia Channel

Last week I wrote a post on classic movie channels that stopped being classic. Following this post, a friend reminded me of a classic movie channel I had forgotten to include in the post. Of course, in some ways it is little wonder I forgot about it, as The Nostalgia Channel is barely remembered today. It launched on February 1 1985, a mere five months after American Movie Classics.  George "Spanky" McFarland, of "Our Gang" fame," helped launched the channel.

The Nostalgia Channel primarily showed movies from the 1920s to the 1960s. Many of the films were in the public domain, and often the prints were in poor condition. Along with feature films, it also showed such movie serials as Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941) and Zorro's Fighting Legion (1939). In between movies The Nostalgia Channel showed vintage newsreels and  retro commercials. Among its regular interstitials were Megaphone Video (short clips from classic musicals) and Nostalgia Radio Theatre (clips of Old Time Radio shows). Among the regular programming was StarClips, which profiled figures from classic movies.

It was in 1990 that Michael E. Marcovsky became the CEO of the Nostalgia Channel. He changed the name to Nostalgia Television, and he also changed the format. While Nostalgia Television still showed classic movies, many of the public domain titles with poor prints were dropped. Among the films shown on Nostalgia Television were such classics as The Red Shoes (1948) and The Lavender Hill Mob (1941). Added to the programming on Nostalgia Television were lifestyle shows and vintage television series.

It was in 1998 that Nostalgia Television was purchased by the Unification Church, which had owned part of the company. Its name was changed to Goodlife TV. By 2005 it was renamed again, this time to American Life TV. Throughout it all, the channel's focus shifted away from classic movies to classic television. Over time it would shift from reruns of older television shows to more recent titles such as Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere.

It was in 2011 that the channel was rebranded once again, this time to Youtoo TV, with a focus primarily on mobile devices. By this point only a few classic television shows remained on the channel, including Batman, The Green Hornet, and The X-Files. By late 2019 and early 2020, YouToo TV gradually rebranded itself YTA TV, to avoid confusion with YouTube.

YTA TV continues to exist to this day and is a far cry from The Nostalgia Channel. It shows nothing in the way of classic movies or classic television. Instead it shows programming such as Forensic Files, Jack Hana's Into the Wild, Pawn Stars, and Sports Stars of Tomorrow.

As to why The Nostalgia Channel ceased to be solely a classic movie channel and changed its format rather often, it would seem that The Nostalgia Channel/Goodlife TV/American Life TV was not a darling of cable channels and satellite channels. It had one of the absolute lowest carriage fees of any cable channel, but often times cable channels, as well as DirecTV and Dish Network, refused to carry it. This was largely because the cable and satellite services perceived it as lacking quality programming, given much of its programming was consisted of public domain movies and older sitcoms. Indeed, the only time I have ever seen the now forgotten sitcom It's a Great Life (which ran from 1954 to 1956) was on American Life TV. Of course, another reason for the failure of The Nostalgia Channel/Goodlife TV/American Life TV was probably competition with American Movies Classics. Just as AMC would later run afoul of Turner Classic Movies, so too did The Nostalgia Channel run afoul of AMC.

Regardless, I have to disagree with the various cable services and satellite services that claimed The Nostalgia Channel/Goodlife TV/American Life TV lacked quality programming. While they did show public domain movies, often with poor prints, later they would show a good amount of classic television that wasn't even seen on TV Land at the time. And quite frankly, I would rather watch an old, public domain movie with a bad print than anything on TLC any day of the week. The Nostalgia Channel/Goodlife TV/American Life TV may not have shown the sort of classics seen on American Movie Classics, TCM, or METV, but there was an audience for it nonetheless.