The Retro Television Network (originally branded as "RTN") launched in July 2005 on select television stations owned by the Equity Broadcasting Corporation (later known as
Equity Media Holdings), a chain of small (often low-powered) satellite-fed
VHF and
UHF television stations controlled directly from Equity's headquarters in
Little Rock, Arkansas. Equity had expanded quickly with purchases of many small stations in the early 2000s, but by 2008, the company was struggling to meet its obligations. In June 2008, while the company was undergoing financial troubles, Equity Media Holdings sold RTN to Henry Luken III's – Equity's former president and CEO, and the company's largest shareholder – Luken Communications (which later rebranded as Reach High Media Group in 2019) for $18.5 million in cash. Equity had an option to repurchase the network for $27.75 million; the purchase option was not exercised and expired on December 24, 2008. Equity had filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy three weeks before the expiration of the purchase option. On January 4, 2009, a contract conflict between Equity and Luken Communications interrupted RTN programming on many of its affiliates with Luken alleging that Equity had left many obligations to RTN's creditors, including programming suppliers, unpaid. As a result, Luken restored a national feed of the network from its Chattanooga headquarters with individual feeds to affiliates not owned by Equity following suit on a piecemeal basis. Equity-owned or -operated stations lost RTN affiliation, though Luken vowed to find new affiliates for the network in the affected areas. The Retro Television Network changed its on-air branding to "RTV" in June 2009 (a nod to the
digital television transition that occurred that month, though a trademark dispute with the
Racetrack Television Network was also a factor in the change). In 2012, RTV dropped from 120 to 80 affiliates with many ABC affiliates switching to the
Live Well Network. Further affiliate drops occurred as RTV's scheduling began to decline with lesser product, with
MeTV and
Antenna TV (both with strong corporate backing and financing, along with more generous affiliation terms than Luken) making major carriage deals with large broadcast groups. In March 2017, the final "major" group carrying the network,
Sinclair Broadcast Group, dropped the network from three remaining Sinclair stations where RTV affiliation agreements were made with their former owners, replacing it with their in-house network
TBD. On October 1, 2017, the network lost its last station with one of the major broadcast networks,
WKTC in
Columbia, South Carolina, which replaced its subchannel with
Laff. The network was re-branded as Retro TV in 2013. Of the top 25 digital broadcast networks for 2014, Retro TV ranked No. 10 with a coverage of 54% of households. ==Concept and programming==