Avant Garde Network

Type

Broadcast television network (syndication service)

Country

United States

Broadcast area

North America

Headquarters

Daily News Building, East 42nd Street, Midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

Programming

Language(s)

English

Picture format

1080i HDTV master feed
(downscaled to 480i (SDTV widescreen) on most over-the-air affiliates)

Ownership

History

Launched

August 9, 2016

Links

Website

central.tv/avantgarde

The Avant Garde Network (more known/simply known as Avant Garde) is a broadcast television network that is owned by the Central Networks Corporation—a subsidiary of Central International Media Inc. Marketed as "The Old and New are Here", the network airs a variety of classic television programs from the 1950s through the early 1990s and also new syndicated TV programs from the mid 1990s, which are obtained primarily from the libraries of Central Television Productions, CBS Media Ventures and 20th Television.

The Avant Garde Network is carried on digital subchannels of affiliated television stations in all markets they serve in North America and Southeast Asia. Avant Garde Network's operations are located in the Daily News Building in New York City.

Avant Garde's rivals are MeTV, MyNetworkTV, Couch Potato Television, NBC Nonstop, among others.

Logo[]

The service uses the Avant Garde logogram featuring typeface of the same name, which was designed and later developed into a font by Herb Lubalin.

Affiliates[]

See Avant Gare Network affiliates category page for a full list.

All Central owned-and-operated stations are affiliated with the channel, including most Central affiliates and some non-Central stations.

As of November 2020, Avant Garde has current or pending affiliation agreements with multiple television stations in multiple television markets encompassing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the border regions of Canada, covering approximately 92.54% of the United States. Of these affiliates, all stations carry the network as a subchannel affiliation and some are general entertainment stations that air select Avant Garde programs on a tape-delayed basis. In almost all of its affiliation agreements, the network's channel slot is mandatorily required to be slotted on either a station's primary channel, or its secondary digital subchannel.

Like This TV and MeTV, Avant Garde affiliates include regional descriptors reflecting the station's primary broadcast area underneath the logo bug displayed during the network's programming (these descriptors are also used in the customized station identifications shown at the top of each hour between programs or during commercial breaks, which differ from the silent lower third in-program IDs seen on This TV). Some stations either display customized logos using adapted versions of their current logo with the subchannel number below the main Avant Garde logo bug or in order to fit in with the network's "retro" format, a logo formerly used by the station. Others display their callsign and city of license (and in some cases, the affiliate's virtual channel number) below the Avant Garde bug full-time in case the full-screen ID sequence malfunctions in some manner.

Although Avant Garde prefers that its local affiliates carry the entire schedule, 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; 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 Avant Garde-affiliated subchannels. Some of the major network affiliates that carry Avant Garde full-time use the affiliated subchannel as a buffer during network sports coverage, breaking news or severe weather coverage situations to carry regularly scheduled network and/or syndicated programming seen on its main channel.

Some affiliates may also preempt select Avant Garde programs to air infomercials, locally acquired syndicated programming, local live sporting events, or in some cases, because the local syndication rights to a particular program are held by a station other than the MeTV affiliate. To address these variances, MeTV includes the fine print notation "On most Avant Garde stations" at the end of its program promotions regardless of whether a program or block is specifically promoted, typically during the timeslot card. Additionally, stations may also air select Avant Garde programs that are recorded in advance on their main channels in order to fill unprogrammed time slots or for use as a backup source of programming in the event that a network-televised sports event is delayed or postponed due to inclement weather as well as during the Christmas season to provide supplementary holiday-themed programming.