Power Network

Captain Zeita Merchant is the first woman in the U.S. Coast Guard to become Commander of Sector New York, which is responsible for marine safety, disaster relief and other area issues. She is also the first person of color to serve both in that position and concurrently as captain of the Port of New York.

Even before she reached those milestones, Merchant recorded short videos for Start TV, a cable and over-the-air digital network geared to women, sharing insights about her career rise: "Often as women, we wait for people to tell us what it is they want us to do. Just go for it, and don't feel as if you have to ask for permission." And recently, she was profiled on the network's Women's History Month special, The Power of Perseverance: Strength Through Struggle.

Merchant's videos are among the roughly 300 such works produced by Start TV, which air as interstitials and are available online at starttv.com. Titled "My Start Story," the videos feature women talking about their career beginnings and offering advice. They highlight a mix of the familiar — chef, architect, attorney — and the more novel — landscape company owner, canine police trainer, basketball team chaplain.

The interstitials fit right into the programming on Start TV, which was launched in September 2018 by Weigel Broadcasting Co., the Chicago-based media company whose other networks include MeTV and Decades, in association with CBS Television Stations. Shows include The Closer, Major Crimes, Crossing Jordan, Medium, Unforgettable, Providence and Any Day Now.

"We wanted to have a network that embraces procedurals, because they do so well on TV, but also something that was women-centric, that featured women in strong roles," says Weigel vice-chairman Neal Sabin. "We looked for shows not only in crime situations, but medical, legal or social situations where women took the lead. And then we said, 'To make this full-circle invaluable to women, we should be doing stories about [real] women and how they got their starts, as encouragement to other women.'"

Merchant says that people recognize her from the network. With the military often omitted in career discussions, "It's a testament to the producers and the network, how they truly look at every different career field, to ensure that they're representing everyone," she says.

Though some of the shows first aired in the nineties, their themes remain as contemporary as the women in the interstitials. The 1998–2000 Lifetime series Any Day Now was about two women — one white, one Black — whose friendship began in childhood; stories took a hard-hitting look at racism in their Birmingham hometown.

"We put that on right after the George Floyd [2020 civil unrest]," Sabin says. "We were ready for some people to have pushback, but it's one of the shows for which we get the most compliments."

Some viewers are happy to revisit old favorites on the Start schedule, while others are discovering shows for the first time. "I was excited to learn that Start TV was opening up a new audience of fresh eyes on some cold cases," says Kathryn Morris, who starred as a Philadelphia homicide detective on the 2003–2010 CBS show Cold Case. "The classic time travel each week woven into a mystery with closure seems to gain new viewers as time goes on. It warms my heart to hear, 'It's my mom's favorite show, and now mine, too.'"