The Nostalgia Channel In February 1985, the channel originally launched as a cable channel, The Nostalgia Channel, through the efforts of former
Our Gang child star
George "Spanky" McFarland. The channel featured vintage movies, similar to
American Movie Classics, which debuted five months earlier as a premium channel broadcasting only during the afternoon and nighttime hours, and
Turner Classic Movies, which would launch nine years later. Many of the films were in the
public domain. Nostalgia Television changed its name to Nostalgia Good TV in 1997. Nostalgia licensed the Goodlife trademark and changed its name to Goodlife TV in 1998 when
Unification Church purchased the rest of the company. In 2004, Goodlife TV announced that it would sign a licensing agreement and partnership with
Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution to broadcast its classic television shows on the channel. Following the expiration of the Goodlife licensing agreement in 2005 with no renewal, the channel changed names again to American Life TV (ALTV). According to a June 2007 story in
Variety, the network was a consistent money-loser, although the church's
tax-exempt status made it easier to absorb the losses. The channel charged providers one of the lowest carriage fees in the industry (between 5-10¢), but despite this, was only available in 10 million households at that time. Comcast refused to carry the channel, citing the lack of quality programming (at that time, made up mainly of
public domain programming and anachronistic sitcoms and dramas in barter arrangements, long dropped from higher-profile networks) and dropped it from the systems it acquired in the
Adelphia bankruptcy as soon as contractually possible. Despite improving the quality of their programming by picking up the
Steven Bochco series
L.A. Law,
Hill Street Blues,
St. Elsewhere and
equity for carriage, both
DirecTV and
Dish continued to refuse carriage. In 2007 the network broadcast
George Clooney's documentary,
A Journey to Darfur. It released the film on
DVD in 2008 and announced that proceeds from its sale would be donated to the
International Rescue Committee for its humanitarian efforts in
Darfur. In 2007, ALN made a
video on demand deal with
TVN Entertainment Corporation to offer up to 20 hours of programming per month to more than 100 cable affiliates.
ComStar In May 2009, the network was acquired by
ComStar Media Fund, an organization chaired by
Robert A. Schuller, son of
Crystal Cathedral founder
Robert H. Schuller. Schuller said that the network would concentrate on "family-values programming that speaks to all generations." On November 29, Schuller's new program
Everyday Life was first seen on ALTV. Chris Wyatt, ComStar's chief executive officer and founder of religious
website Godtube, commented: "We are not creating another religious network but rather a family-values channel. We've tapped into a huge underserved market and have the opportunity over time to increase distribution to exceed 40 million homes." Media reports indicated that the network's on-air presentation would change and that other syndicated series would be targeted for acquisition. On December 1, 2009, ALN announced that it would start airing episodes of
Chuck Norris'
World Combat League, previously seen on the
Versus network. ComStar also has access to a library of classic television programing including
Happy Days and
My Three Sons. Some of the older television shows moved from ALN to its sister network,
FamilyNet on March 1, 2010, when it was spun out into its own company with
Robert A. Schuller as the chairman.
Youtoo On September 27, 2011, ALN was rebranded as
Youtoo TV with a focus on mobile devices; as of that date, all links to the website redirected to a page inviting viewers to sign up for the new service at youtoo.com. The only "retro" programs remaining on the schedule are
Batman,
The Green Hornet, and
The X-Files. Executives claim Youtoo TV to be a
social television service, allowing viewers to participate in television programming using personal electronic devices. Interactive features include the ability for viewers to create and submit 15-second videos, called "Fame Spots", commenting on a variety of subjects, which will air. In addition, the network will carry programming such as
Howcast and
Christopher Coppola's
Digivangelist Show. Also on the network will be new TV versions of Web series including
GeekBeat.TV,
Koldcast, and
Rooftop Media. The network also will have interactive programs including
Say Yes & Marry Me, which will offer viewers the opportunity to propose marriage on-air via Fame Spots. Re-purposed programming from
Revision3 was removed from the network after that provider's sale to
Discovery Communications in 2012. One of the creators of Youtoo TV is producer
Mark Burnett, through his own social media project, by content marketing studio VIMBY. It was reported in September 2014 that Youtoo TV had acquired
America One, its network of terrestrial (mostly
low-power) affiliates, and most of its remaining, non-sports programming. (Prior to this, only one terrestrial affiliate,
WBQP-CD, carried Youtoo over the air.) The merger was finalized in the spring of 2015, with the resulting network becoming "Youtoo America". Over the course of late 2019 and early 2020, it began using the shortened branding of YTA, presumably due to confusion with
YouTube and its similarly named
YouTube TV streaming service, and
channel drift away from the 2011 social television model.
Invincible Entertainment Corp. Acquisition On October 5, 2022, Invincible Entertainment Corp., then operating as Invincible Entertainment Partners, acquired YTA. The company reoriented the network toward its nostalgia roots, adopting a
Cold War-era aesthetic and dropped the "Youtoo" name, creating the
backronym Your Television America to fit the YTA initials. ==Carriage==