LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. – Outside Interactive, previous network owner of Lake Tahoe Television, has transferred its ownership to former General Manager, Peter Loughlin along with several other local owners and will relaunch as Adventure Outdoors Network – Lake Tahoe.
In the process of transitioning out of an ownership role, the Outside Interactive network has been selling all operations for each of its TV stations with goals of converting the stations into affiliate programs that are locally owned and operated.
Loughlin, who is now CEO, established the station and has been in the Tahoe market since 1993. He was offered the chance to purchase the station from the previous ownership group, but was outbid.
After keeping him on as General Manager, Loughlin later received a call with another offer from the network owners.
“They said, ‘we can’t think of anyone else we’d rather sell the TV station to, to keep it a liable entity and to keep the programming going, so are you interested?'”, said Loughlin. “What I did was I diversified a little bit, so there are several owners involved in the TV station, but we’re all local.”
Loughlin expanded on the multiplicity within the new ownership group, noting that half of them are women.
“It’s not a male-dominated ownership group, and that was important,” Loughlin said. “We used to live in a patriarchal society, from a broadcast standpoint, and that’s not the new reality. You have to be diverse and you have to value other people’s opinions, their input and their contributions.”
Moving forward, Loughlin and the Lake Tahoe team began spitballing names and landed on Adventure Outdoors Network – Lake Tahoe, keeping the same direction of being a station that continues to be a source for outdoor recreation, news and activities.
There are some upgrades in store as the station plans to include more programming by investing in new streaming platforms and shooting on location with new equipment such as production vehicles and cameras.
“At the end of the day, what we have to keep in mind is, what is it that we have for a product – on the air, on streaming, on TV, and that’s really the most important thing,” added Loughlin.
