In my area, 35 miles east of Cleveland, Time Warner Cable picks up Antenna TV and MeTV, both as subchannels of, respectively, Cleveland's FOX and CBS affiliates on channels 8 and 19 (Antenna TV is 8.2, MeTV is 19.2). My thanks to VK member Basil Lambri for giving me a heads-up on the latter; as I will explain, I watch that channel (and Antenna TV) daily and enjoy seeing once again all or most of the TV shows I watched as a teenager and a young adult in the 1970s.
Time Warner Cable in this area does not currently carry RTV, and I don't think it will any time soon, or perhaps ever, as the cable operator may believe two retro-TV channels are enough, for now anyway, in the northeastern Ohio/western Pennsylvania region. I've been watching Cannon (early-1970s crime drama starring William Conrad, as private investigator Frank Cannon) every morning at 11 on MeTV and am enjoying the heck out of it; haven't seen these shows in 40 years and it's wonderful seeing them again, this time around in high definition. IMHO, they never looked better. I also watch The Bob Newhart Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary Tyler Moore and, on weekends, The Odd Couple on MeTV. I never thought these programs would return to cable after TV Land and Nick at Nite dropped them several years ago.
New shows are added to these retro-TV channels all the time, so it may not be long before Magnum, P. I., et al. show up on MeTV or Antenna TV. Until Magnum does appear on one of these channels, however, it may be possible to get the shows on DVD if you have a subscription to Netflix or Blockbuster Video. If the program is
not yet available on DVD (I will check Netflix's website in a few minutes), I would be surprised, as Magnum, P. I. was a very popular show, on, I believe, CBS in the late seventies -- it should have been released on DVD by now, unless fewer than 100 episodes were made. I read somewhere that before a series can be released on DVD, at least one hundred episodes of that series must have been made and released for broadcast over the air or on cable. I always got a kick out of how Magnum and his (for want of a better word) boss, Jonathan Higgins, are always and forever (or so it seems) having differences of opinion or outright locking horns with each other over cases Magnum is working on. Wouldn't mind seeing those episodes again.
BTW, just a heads-up for those of you who would like to see Magnum, P.I. but don't yet get it on cable: I checked Netflix's site (
http://www.netflix.com) and found that Magnum, P. I. is in fact available for rental on DVD or via streaming video. However, be advised that if you choose the latter format, you will need a streaming video decoder box such as Boxee, Roku or the like ahead of your TV; standard digital cable boxes (at least the ones used with Time Warner Cable in my area) do not currently have the capability to receive and decode video streams. Boxee offers a freely-downloadable software version of its decoder box (at least it did the last time I checked their site), but I don't see how it can work with any kind of digital TV unless the computer is connected to a flat-screen TV; I seriously doubt that the software, like the physical Boxee box itself, will work with any NTSC-standard television, even if the set is connected to digital cable through a box.