Remembering MetroTV

In the early 2000s, New York City was recovering from 9/11, the twelve years of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's reign were just starting, and the turbocharged gentrification of the city was on its way. It was a turning point in NYC and also for me personally -- I was a couple of years out of college and still finding my way, personally and professionally. It's also when a small, very offbeat, extremely local cable channel hit the air that was destined to be short-lived but was, at least for me at the time, a fun diversion.

It was called MetroTV, and it was an odd child of both New York magazine and the Dolan-family owned MSG networks.

Like its parentage, its content was a mashup of programming from the MSG networks. During the day it broadcast weather, traffic, educational programming, and, on the weekends, sports.

But at night, MetroTV got ... sexy!

It had these very NYC-centered shows about dating, sex, love, and being single in NYC. There were shows like Naked New York where relationship "experts", book authors and magazine writers, adult start, and various other experts in the excercise of Venus would be interviewed by a middle-aged guy and his very hot younger female sidekick. There was To Live and Date in New York, a reality show about single people. There was The Radio Chick on the Prowl where a oddball radio host Leslie Gold would talk with people about -- guess what? -- dating! And there was, most originally, a show called Strictly Personal where people would record themselves talking about why they were great dating prospects and then they would direct people to a dating website to contact them. A friend of mine even appeared on this! (Yours truly did not.) This was in the early years of online dating, before the IPhone and dating apps completely changed the game. 

In a way MetrTV reminded me of the old WNYC TV -- lots of dull programming and some really wacky stuff. 

MetroTV started in 2002 and ended in 2005. By then most of this programming had been cancelled. I don't know why it didn't last -- shows about love/sex/dating might get boring after a while and also this channel was so far down on the dial that people probably didn't find it. MSG seems to have realized that sports programming was probably cheaper and more popular.

I tried to find old clips of MetroTV shows on YouTube but none were to be found -- seems like it's all been memory-holed, locked in vaults somewhere. But it was a moment in time, gone but not totally forgotten.