• by Wayne Friedman , March 10, 2006

Tube Music Network, a digital music network, has inked a distribution deal with Tribune Broadcasting Co., for all Tribune's stations' local digital signals.

This follows up on a deal Tube made with Raycom Media in the Spring 2005, when the channel was launched. All told, Tube's digital signal is now attached to some 65 broadcast stations.

Tube is the brainchild of Les Garland, former MTV executive, who is president and CEO. Garland was the first programming executive of MTV. He also had a strong hand in developing VH1 and The Box.

Now that broadcast stations have the ability to develop and air digital channels, a number of new services are looking for carriage. Already, NBC-owned stations have an NBC weather digital channel. ABC has a news channels for its stations. CBS has announced an entertainment channel. These signals can be accessed by digital over-the-air set-top boxes or cable digital set-top boxes.

Tube is Tribune's and Raycom's first digital--or so-called "multicast"--network deal.

Tube is a music video channel--similar to the early years of MTV, when it primarily played videos. Tube plays 14 music videos an hour, and sells only six minutes an hour of advertising time. Five of those minutes are sold by Tube to national advertisers, and one minute is given to local stations. As part of the deal to carry Tube, each station gets a share of Tube's national advertising revenues.

With so many new programming networks taking the cable digital route, Tube decided to take a different path.

"We made a decision to be a broadcast play," says Garland. "We choose that path because of the space that was available, and because of the marketing help we get from our broadcast partners."

Tube requires stations to air at least 10 thirty-second Tube promos a week. Some stations have gone so far as to also air special Tube programming on their own airwaves, helping to market the network.

Garland says it is difficult to compute exact national coverage of Tube so far. But he says that roughly 38 percent to 42 percent of all markets have cable subscribers on digital tiers. He adds that Tube is working on several other station group deals.