Mizlou Television Network, Inc. or Mizlou Communications, Inc., is a former sports

broadcast Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began ...

television network A television network or television broadcaster is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations or multichannel video programming distributo ...

. It was active from 1962 to 1991, and in 1992 it was re-established as Mizlou Television Network, Inc., which is now based in Tampa, Florida. Mizlou later branched out into cable sports channels.

Operation

The network was not a full-time network, but produced sports and entertainment

television show A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed betw ...

s offered to a set of affiliates set up event by event. It was seen on

affiliates In the broadcasting industry (particularly in North America, and even more in the United States), a network affiliate or affiliated station is a local broadcaster, owned by a company other than the owner of the network, which carries some or ...

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

, and

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

, and on independent television stations and cable channels. Mizlou utilized the AT&T system to distribute signals to television stations nationwide via land lines and

microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define different frequency ran ...

facilities. Mizlou produced the first "live" coast-to-coast satellite feed, of a

New York Cosmos New York Cosmos may refer to * New York Cosmos (1970–1985), a team in the North American Soccer League (then the top-tier soccer league in the United States and Canada) * New York Cosmos (2010), a team playing since 2020 in the National Independ ...

soccer game, from

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...

WOR-TV WWOR-TV (channel 9) is a television station licensed to Secaucus, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area as the flagship of MyNetworkTV. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox flagship WNYW (ch ...

in New York in the late 1970s.

History

Unisphere Broadcasting System

In mid-1965, radio businessman Vincent C. Piano proposed the Unisphere Broadcasting System. The service would have operated 2.5 hours each night. However, Piano had difficulty signing affiliates; a year later, no launch date had been set, and the network still lacked a "respectable number of affiliates in major markets."

Mizlou TV Network

Mizlou began syndicating college football bowls in 1968.

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

sold Mizlou rights to two of its

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...

men's basketball games along with the women's basketball Maryland versus

Immaculata The Immaculate Conception is the belief that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church, meaning that it is held to be a divinely revealed truth wh ...

game on January 26, 1975. This was the first national broadcast of a women’s college basketball game with 100+ stations signing on to the telecast. Mizlou broadcast the first three

Fiesta Bowl The Fiesta Bowl is an American college football bowl game played annually in the Phoenix metropolitan area. From its beginning in 1971 until 2006, the game was hosted at the Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. Since 2007, the game has been playe ...

starting in 1971 and lost money on the first broadcast. In 1979, the Network broadcast the

Miss Black Universe USA Miss (pronounced ) is an English language honorific typically used for a girl, for an unmarried woman (when not using another title such as "Doctor" or " Dame"), or for a married woman retaining her maiden name. Originating in the 17th century, i ...

and International beauty pageants. The network carried the 1975

Blue-Gray Football Classic Livid is a medium bluish-gray color. This color name comes from the Latin color term ''lividus'' meaning "'a dull leaden-blue color', and also used to describe the color of contused flesh, leading to the English expression 'black and blue'". ...

, angering the all-star game's committee by convincing the

game clock A chess clock consists of two adjacent clocks with buttons to stop one clock while starting the other, so that the two clocks never run simultaneously. Chess clocks are used in chess and other two-player games where the players move in turn, and ...

operator to cut three minutes off the clock in the first quarter. Mizlou was hired by U.S. Tobacco to broadcast the College National Final Rodeo in 1981. In 1985, Mizlou decided not to renew the

Holiday Bowl The Holiday Bowl is a post-season NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision college football bowl game that has been played in San Diego since 1978. San Diego County Credit Union has been the game's title sponsor since 2017, and the bowl has b ...

broadcast contract. In 1986, the network signed a three-year deal with the

Freedom Bowl The Freedom Bowl was an annual post-season college football bowl game played at Anaheim Stadium in Anaheim, California, from 1984 to 1994. The bowl frequently invited a team from the Western Athletic Conference to compete against an at-large opp ...

adding them to their bowl line up of Bluebonnet,

Cherry A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit). Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet ''Prunus avium'' and the sour ''Prunus cerasus''. The nam ...

Independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...

and

Hall of Fame Bowl The ReliaQuest Bowl is an annual college football bowl game played at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, usually on New Year's Day. The event has been formerly called the Hall of Fame Bowl from 1986 to 1995 and the Outback Bowl from 1996 t ...

s for that year. In August 1989, Mizlou Communications announced the November launch of

Sports News Network Sports News Network (SNN) (sometimes referred to as Mizlou Sports News Network) was the first 24-hour sports news cable channel, owned by Mizlou Communications. It pre-dates NewSport, launched in 1993 & owned by Rainbow Programming Holdings, a joi ...

, a 24-hour sports news and interview basic channel. Mizlou in February 1990 made a private placement of securities to keep SNN going. Mizlou made another attempt before July 1990 and attempted a third placement of $15–$20 million in July 1990 for the network. SNN went dark on December 17, 1990 as parent Mizlou Communications filed for bankruptcy. Mizlou was in talks with

Landmark Communications Landmark Media Enterprises, LLC (a spinoff of Landmark Communications, Inc.) is a privately held media company headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia specializing in newspaper publishing, Internet publishing and software. History Norfolk Newspape ...

and

Telecable Corporation Telecable is a cable company that operates in Asturias (northern Spain) offering triple play services (telephone, Internet and television) as well as mobile phone services as an MVNO since 2007. The company started out as Telecable de Oviedo, Tel ...

as a potential buyer of the channel and other assets. In January 1991, Landmark dropped plans for a sport news channel and its discussions with Mizlou for the purchases of Sports News Network due to

Tele-Communications Inc. Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) was a cable television provider in the United States, and for most of its history was controlled by Bob Magness and John Malone. The company was started in 1958 in Bozeman, Montana as Western Microwave, Inc. and Co ...

's planned launch of

Prime Sports News A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...

, an all-sports news cable channel.

References

External links