[8] On January 1, 2005, Weigel rechristened the Chicago low-power station as WWME-CA and removed the ethnic-oriented programming that filled its late afternoon and nighttime schedule, adopting the MeTV format and on-air branding full-time.
[9] On August 4, 2007, WWME launched a weekend morning block that primarily featured Spanish dubs of select classic series, "Sí!
MeTV" lineup – which ran on the station until its discontinuation on January 25, 2009 – were sourced from the Universal Television library (including Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess, Miami Vice, Quantum Leap, and The Incredible Hulk), with syndication restrictions imposed on the original English-language versions resulting in some of the programs being made available to the station only in Spanish.
[11][12] The two stations eventually carved out their own identities, culminating in a format shift on September 14, 2009, when WWME began to exclusively carry off-network sitcoms (such as I Love Lucy, Leave It to Beaver, The Andy Griffith Show, The Bernie Mac Show, All in the Family, The Honeymooners, and Frasier),[13] while MeToo on WMEU began running only off-network drama series.
[14] On March 1, 2008, Weigel expanded the MeTV format to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where it began airing on the third digital subchannel of the group's CBS affiliate in that market, WDJT-TV (channel 58).
On November 22, 2010, Weigel announced that it would take the MeTV concept national and turn it into a full-fledged network with a standardized schedule, available to any station that wished to affiliate.
On April 1, 2013, Nielsen began to tabulate national viewership for MeTV, including the network in its prime time and total day ratings reports.
Although most affiliates continue to carry the MeTV feed in the 4:3 format due to technical considerations regarding transmission of their primary channel in high-definition and/or carriage of other subchannels, the switch to a widescreen feed was done mainly to accommodate national and local advertisers that produce commercials exclusively in the 16:9 format and prefer not to have their advertising letterboxed into a 4:3 presentation, and stations which carry newscasts and other local programming on their MeTV subchannels that prefer to present them in widescreen.
Since MeTV broadcasts programs that it acquired through the syndication market, episodes of these shows are usually edited to fit into the allotted running time with commercials factored in.
Since its inception as a national network, MeTV has also aired marathons of The Doris Day Show on Christmas Eve as well as Christmas-themed specials during the month of December.
The network occasionally pays tribute to a recently deceased actor or actress with a marathon showcasing episodes of their past television roles (either those that the performer had starred in as a regular or appeared as a guest star) to which MeTV has access to broadcast through its distributors, pre-empting episodes originally scheduled to air that day; however, these have aired in a significantly decreased usage since the discontinuance of the "MeTV Sunday Showcase" block in September 2012.
Despite access to program content from the Universal Television, CBS Media Ventures and 20th Century Fox libraries, movies have a relatively limited presence on MeTV's weekly schedule.
The network airs the Rich Koz-hosted horror and sci-fi film showcase Svengoolie, which is syndicated by sister CW-affiliate station WCIU-TV, on Saturday evenings.
In order to comply with educational programming requirements mandated by the Federal Communications Commission's Children's Television Act on behalf of the network's affiliates, MeTV carried an hour-long block of Green Screen Adventures (Weigel's Chicago-based program originally meant for local viewing) on Saturday mornings and a two-hour block of the teen sitcom Saved by the Bell (which has long been used to meet E/I – or educational and informative – requirements, including by the original Chicago MeTV on WWME-CA prior to the national network's launch, and the TNBC block it formerly anchored) on Sunday mornings.
In September 2013, MeTV began customizing its weekend morning lineup in order to allow its affiliates to choose between running both Saturday and Sunday E/I blocks, or running the children's lineup on one weekend day and a three-hour block of classic series in place of the children's programs on the other, allowing stations to fulfill educational programming quotas by running the minimum three-hour requirement or an overall total of six hours of E/I content (this was reconfigured in January 2015 to allow stations the option of pre-empting the last two hours of the Saturday E/I block to carry only Green Screen Adventures and Saved by the Bell to reach their weekly E/I requirements).
Starting on October 2, MeTV’s educational/informational block on Sunday mornings was overhauled with the addition of Beakman’s World and Bill Nye the Science Guy, the latter acquired from Disney-ABC Home Entertainment and Television Distribution.
Although MeTV prefers that its local affiliates carry the entire schedule,[32] some affiliates regularly pre-empt certain network programs in order to air morning and/or prime time newscasts produced by the station specifically for the subchannel or public affairs programs (such as with WLKY-TV in Louisville and WBAL-TV in Baltimore); this has become particularly more common since September 2015, when other Hearst Television-owned stations in markets where the group does not maintain a duopoly (as is the case with WBAL and WLKY, which launched theirs earlier) gradually began launching prime time newscasts on their MeTV-affiliated subchannels.
The MeTV channel in the Cleveland, Ohio market, WOIO-DT2, also carries MyNetworkTV, though as a non-prime contractual burn-off in the graveyard slot in lieu of sister station WUAB, which switched to The CW in 2018.
On April 4, 2011, Weigel announced affiliation agreements for MeTV with 14 broadcasting companies, most notably Hearst Television, Hubbard Broadcasting, Graham Media Group, Nexstar Media Group, Gray Television, Cox Media Group, and Tegna Inc.[39] Also of note, in December 2013, the network moved its Dallas-Fort Worth affiliation to a newly created subchannel of independent station KTXA (replacing Greenville-based KTXD-TV, which abruptly disaffiliated from MeTV three months earlier), marking CBS Television Stations' first affiliation deal involving a major subchannel network (Weigel and CBS would later partner to create Decades, a similar classic television-focused network that launched on May 25, 2015[40]).
The MeToo format was relegated to WWME's analog signal and WCIU digital subchannel 26.4 on November 1, 2013, when WMEU was converted into a standalone extension of WCIU's "The U Too" subchannel, itself an extension of the general entertainment independent station format carried by that station's primary channel, albeit with some classic series remaining on the schedule.
The MeToo format was discontinued outright on December 29, 2014, when it was replaced on WCIU-DT4 by Weigel's new male-targeted classic television network Heroes & Icons.
[42] Weigel Broadcasting had planned to expand the MeToo format to Milwaukee, intending to launch a similar locally programmed subchannel on WBME-TV in early 2011.
Through a local marketing agreement with owner Venture Technologies Group, Weigel operates WRME-LD (channel 6) in Chicago as a co-branded radio station, known as "MeTV FM", which maintains an oldies format focusing on classic music from the 1950s to the 1980s.
[56] Affiliates[57] MeTV+ arranges the bulk of its lineup in organized genre-based programming blocks, most of which use the "Me" moniker (in some cases, as an intentional pun) for brand unification purposes.
Discovery to launch MeTV Toons, a 24/7 free-to-air television network dedicated to broadcasting classic animation programming, on June 25, 2024.