MAVTV

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MAVTV
200px
Launched October 1, 2004
Owned by Lucas Oil, Incorporated
Picture format 480i (SDTV)
1080i (HDTV)
Slogan American Real
Country United States
Broadcast area National
Headquarters Corona, California
Formerly called Maverick Television
Website Mavtv.com
Availability
Satellite
DirecTV Channel 214 (SD)
Cable
Verizon FiOS Channel 810 (HD)

MAVTV (originally known as Maverick Television) is a general entertainment cable and satellite television channel, focused towards what the network's management claims is an "action-oriented family audience", featuring films, motorsports, and other acquired series programming. Bob Patison serves as President of the network.

History

MAVTV launched on October 1, 2004 based out of Atlanta with distribution limited to select cable companies, with the name a shortening of Maverick Television (the network's name at launch). The network was privately held and founded by four former executives from Showtime Networks—Steve Severn, Steve Smith, Doug Jost, Rob Stevens.

Purchase by Lucas Oil and change of programming direction

In October 2011, longtime partner lubricants company Lucas Oil purchased Maverick Television; the company had provided and sponsored most of the network's motorsports rights even before their purchase, and the network was likely to go dark without the purchase as programming rights had deteriorated towards barter programming and heavy repeats of library content. The network was quickly reformatted away by the new management from a completely male focus featuring lowbrow comedies, low-tier male targeting programming and Canadian content dramas with low cost purchase rights, and late night shows featuring women in bikini shoots towards a general family programming direction.

On July 4, 2012, Lucas re-branded the network, shortening the name to MAVTV (now all capitalized), but with the MAV initials standing for "Movies, Action, and Variety" with the addition of films and more concert programming to the schedule, and a gradual drawdown of racing-related programming to a smaller, yet important part of the schedule to maintain its cable carriage mainly among digital sports tiers, including the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series and the Lucas Oil Pro Pulling League. The network also airs classic programming such as The Lone Ranger, Starsky & Hutch, and Bonanza as well as a number of programs from the now-defunct SPEED Channel.

Past programming

The network added a full HD feed in the 3rd quarter of 2008 to complement the standard 24/7 lineup; the 480i SDTV network is optimized for widescreen television sets in full mode to provide a full widescreen experience. MAVTV also produces and carries a large library of native 1080i HD series.

Before Lucas Oil took over full management of the network, MAVTV carried programming such as the second season of Rad Girls, SpeedFreaks, Women's Flat Track Roller Derby, American Tailgater, AMA Motorcycle Racing, Wrestlicious TakeDown, Ultimate Combat Experience, Bikini AllStars and Best of the Best. In addition, MAVTV presented a documentaries slanted only towards men, entitled Manumentaries. Except for existing Lucas Oil programming and the AMA, none of this programming currently remains on the network's schedule. Overnights had been filled by music video/interactive SMS programming from NOYZ via a time brokerage agreement before that company went bankrupt in early 2008.

Sports deals

In 2007, MAVTV struck a deal with the Women's Flat Track Derby Association to broadcast two of the three roller derby finals: the Eastern Regional Tournament (Heartland Havoc, which was broadcast as a series of one-hour weekly episodes)[1] and the National Championships (Texas Shootout).[2]

MAVTV contracted with the Automobile Racing Club of America, the auto racing sanctioning body, to air at least 6 races in 2008, including both 100-mile dirt races at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield, and the Southern Illinois State Fairgrounds in DuQuoin.[3] SpeedFreaks hosts Kenny Sargent and Crash Gladys also appeared on episodes of the Lucas Motorsports hour.

MAVTV sponsored the MAVTV 500, the final race in the 2012 season of the IndyCar Series, which took place at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.

MAVTV is partnered with King of the Cage, broadcasting their live and past Martial Arts events, as well as Championship Wrestling From Hollywood.

MAVTV did their 1st live motorsports event, the Lucas Oil Challenge Cup featuring the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series on October 27, 2013 from Lake Elsinore Motorsports Park. They will also do live coverage of the Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals, one of the biggest midget car races every year. The East Bay Winter Nationals from the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series and all Moto1 rounds of the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motorcross championship in 2014. They will also cover several King of the Cage MMA events live in 2014.[4]

In 2014, MAVTV partnered with professional road racing series Pirelli World Challenge to air the Pirelli World Challenge Touring Car Championship.

Movie deals

On April 27, 2010, MAVTV signed a deal with Sony Pictures giving them access to select titles from Sony's film library. The deal is part of MAVTV's programming strategy to expand its schedule to include Hollywood blockbuster films.[5] The network added films from the Warner Bros. library in July 2012.

Personnel

Key people at MAVTV include:[6]

  • Bob Patison, President of MAVTV and Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Lucas Oil
  • Dan Teitscheid, Vice President of Content Distribution & Partner Marketing
  • Ed Niemi, Vice President of Distribution
  • Mark Mitchell, Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Business Development
  • Jason Patison, Director of Programming
  • Steve Grein, Executive Producer
  • Stuart Rowlands, Publicity and Public Relations

Carriage

MAVTV can be found in the US on Cablevision, Charter Communications, GCI in Alaska, select cable systems within the Caribbean Co-op, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and DirecTV.

As per an email sent to its subscribers, Verizon FiOS removed the channel from its TV service along with Youtoo TV, Blue Highways TV, and Blackbelt TV as of December 31, 2012, making it available as an "On Demand" service. However, the channel returned to Verizon FiOS on June 10, 2014.

DirecTV added MAVTV on June 10, 2013. The channel is being carried in standard definition.[7]

MAVTV will be launched in Canada in late 2015 in a partnership with the Anthem Media Group, which will produce Canadian content.

MAVTV was previously carried Dish Network in high definition from May 8, 2009 to May 12, 2015, when Dish dropped the channel as MAVTV and its parent company Lucas Oil failed to reach an new agreement to continue carrying the channel.[8]

Programming

Motorsports coverage

Motorsport highlight and reality shows

References

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External links