There’s no place like broadcast television! Starting in 1959, The Wizard of Oz was a broadcast TV staple, airing as a television special once a year (with the exception of 1963, for whatever reason) on CBS. In 1998, however, CBS aired the film for the last time—Ted Turner, who owned the IP, moved the film exclusively over to his Time-Warner cable stations. Since then, it’s aired on TNT and TBS several times (it also, controversially, played at the Sphere in Las Vegas), but not on a free broadcast network… until now.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, MeTV has purchased the exclusive broadcast rights for The Wizard of Oz. The network, which focuses on classic TV, will air the film several times in October 2026 as part of its Halloween BOO-Nanza campaign, twenty-eight or so years after its last broadcast in 1998.
“The Wizard of Oz is more than a movie, it is a shared American experience that was defined by the annual tradition of gathering around the television set,” Neal Sabin, vice chairman of Weigel Broadcasting, which owns MeTV, said in a statement to THR. “We are thrilled to bring the film back to broadcast television this October on MeTV. It will be presented without any edits and will be surrounded by surprises we will announce later….”
MeTV is available on broadcast television over the air for most of the U.S. if you want to get out your TV rabbit ears. It’s also available via Frndly TV, Philo, Fubo, DirecTV Stream and Sling TV.
