Guardian Enterprise Group is to launch its new, nationwide multicast digital broadcast network, .2 Network in February 2008. .2Network programming includes a licensing deal with Sony Pictures Television (SPT) for over 300 titles of blockbuster, award-winning films as well as four television series.

Dubbed 'Network-in-a-Box' .2Network provides local station affiliates with a uniform, national network platform, affording stations a 24/7 option to simply 'plug and play' the network onto their current available and unused digital multicast channel positions and receive back immediate non-traditional revenue ('NTR') in the form of revenue sharing.

Station affiliates can customise and localise their digital channel by pre-empting portions of the 24/7 feed and re-purposing and inserting their main channel's local news, traffic and weather or other public interest programming, and receive local barter spots throughout the day. .2Network enables broadcasters to monetise the digital capabilities they were mandated to build with little or no past offsetting revenue sources.

.2Network President Richard C Schilg said that in the digital world and with digital multicasting, a limited number of new, nationwide television broadcast networks could now be added to the landscape.

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