Court TV

Type	Digital over-the-air television network
Country	United States
Broadcast area	Nationwide via OTA digital television
Affiliates	List of Court TV affiliates
Headquarters	Atlanta, Georgia
Programming
Picture format	HDTV 1080i (downconverted to 480i or 720p on some affiliates and transmitted in either 16:9 widescreen or 4:3 letterbox)
Ownership
Owner	Scripps Networks, LLC (E. W. Scripps Company)
Parent	Court TV Media LLC
Key people	John Alleva Scott Tufts (vice presidents and managing editors) Vinnie Politan (primetime anchor)
History
Founded	December 14, 1990; 33 years ago (1990-12-14) (now TruTV) May 8, 2019; 4 years ago (2019-05-08) (re-founded)
Launched	July 1, 1991; 32 years ago (1991-07-01) (cable broadcast) May 8, 2019; 4 years ago (2019-05-08) (digital broadcast)
Founder	Steven Brill
Closed	December 31, 2007; 16 years ago (2007-12-31) (cable broadcast)
Replaced by	TruTV (cable broadcast)
Links
Website	www.courttv.com
Availability
Streaming media
Service(s)	Frndly TV

Court TV is an American digital broadcast network and former pay-television channel. It was originally launched in 1991 with a focus on crime-themed programs such as the true crime documentary series, legal analysis talk shows, and live news coverage of prominent criminal cases. In 2008, the original cable channel became TruTV.

The channel relaunched on May 8, 2019, as a digital broadcast television network owned by Scripps Networks, a subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. Court TV is also available via streaming and FAST such as YouTube TV and Pluto TV, and its audio feed is available on Sirius XM channel 793.

History

As a cable television channel

Cable television channel Courtroom Television Network, known as Court TV, was launched on July 1, 1991, at 6:00 am Eastern Time by founder Steven Brill and was available to three million subscribers.^[1] Its original anchors were Jack Ford, Fred Graham, Cynthia McFadden, and Gregg Jarrett. The network was born out of two competing projects to launch cable channels with live courtroom proceedings, the American Trial Network from Time Warner and American Lawyer Media, and In Court from Cablevision and NBC. Both projects were present at the National Cable Television Association, in June 1990.^[2] Rather than trying to establish two competing networks, the projects were combined on December 14, 1990. Liberty Media would join the venture in 1991. The network's first logo consisted of a rectangle with the word "COURT", and the letters "TV" below, with a line underneath. The network's second logo ran from 1999 to 2005. The network's third and final logo ran from 2005 to 2007.

The channel originally consisted of live courtroom trials that were interspersed with anchors and reporters. It was led by law writer Steven Brill, who later left the network in 1997. The network came into its own during the Menéndez brothers' first trial in 1994, and the O.J. Simpson murder trial in 1995. In 1998, NBC sold its share of the network to Time Warner. That same year, Court TV began running several original and acquired programs in prime time, such as Homicide: Life on the Street, and Forensic Files. In 1999, it acquired the rerun rights to Fox's Cops.^[3]

Recognizing the growth of its prime time programming, Court TV announced in 2005 that it would split its programming into two brands. Daytime trial coverage was branded as Court TV News while other dayparts were branded under the tagline Seriously Entertaining; this programming would feature new reality television series focusing on crime-oriented topics. In January 2006, the network launched a male-targeted programming block known as "RED", an abbreviation of "Real. Exciting. Dramatic."^[4][5]

Time Warner bought full control of Court TV in 2006 and began running it as part of the company's Turner Broadcasting System division. The buyout of Court TV marked Time Warner's first television network acquisition, rather than a sale, since the acquisition of Turner in 1996.^{[citation needed]} On July 11, 2007, it was announced that Court TV would be relaunched as truTV on January 1, 2008. The new brand was intended to accompany a larger shift towards action-oriented reality series which did not necessarily involve crime or law enforcement.

Reruns of Court TV series then aired on HLN (primarily Forensic Files) and the over-the-air digital network True Crime Network (originally known as Justice Network). With changes to HLN's programming strategy and the growing popularity of the genre, the network began to produce and premiere more original true crime programs in 2017.^[6][7][8][9]

As a digital broadcast network

On December 10, 2018, Katz Broadcasting (owned by the E. W. Scripps Company) announced that it would relaunch Court TV as an over-the-air network following the acquisition of the intellectual property rights to the Court TV name and the pre-2008 Court TV original programming library from Turner Broadcasting System and Warner Bros. Television Studios.^[10] Scripps announced affiliation deals with Tribune Media and Univision Communications at that date, in addition to existing Scripps-owned stations.^[10] Further deals with Meredith Corporation, Nexstar Media Group (which was in the process of acquiring Tribune; the deal closed in September 2019), Tegna, and Quincy Media were announced on May 2, 2019.^[11] The channel is also available nationally on Pluto TV and Haystack News.

The relaunched Court TV features live court coverage with former Court TV anchor Vinnie Politan as lead anchor and Court TV and CNN producers John Alleva and Scott Tufts as vice presidents and managing editors. The network began broadcasting on May 8, 2019. The first live courtroom coverage was the Covington, Georgia, trial of parents who, after reporting their newborn baby missing in 2017, were later charged with murder. It also featured coverage of the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault trial^[12] and the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse.

In May 2020, the network was picked up for carriage on YouTube TV.^[13]

Following Scripps acquisition of Ion Media in 2021, it began to add Court TV to its stations in place of the defunct Qubo, Ion Plus and Ion Shop networks.^[14]

Local Affiliates (2019 Version)