Court TV, an iconic TV brand known for broadcasting the trials of O.J. Simpson, the Menendez Brothers and Casey Anthony, will relaunch under its old name with a new backer.
Katz Networks, a unit of the E.W. Scripps Co. which operates multicast networks like Bounce, Escape and Grit, will relaunch Court TV in May 2019. Just as it did when it was owned by Turner Broadcasting, the network will be devoted to live, gavel-to-gavel coverage, legal reporting and expert analysis of trials across the country. Court TVs 17-year run ended in 2008, when Turner rebranded it as truTV.
In order to pull off the reboot, Katz acquired Court TVs intellectual property, including the trademark, website and 100,000-hour library from Turner. It also brought in original Court TV anchor Vinnie Politan as lead anchor and installed former Court TV and CNN producers John Alleva and Scott Tufts as vice presidents and managing editors. The newsroom and studio will be in Atlanta.
In its new incarnation, Court TV will be an ad-supported network available through cable and satellite bundles as well as over-the-air and streaming over-the-top. The network has secured over-the-air distribution on major local TV station groups including Tribune, Scripps and Univision. Those deals will make Court available in more than 50% of U.S. TV households at launch, with cable reach to 25% of homes.
“Court TV was a top-20 cable network and at the height of its popularity when the network was taken off the air in 2008,” said Jonathan Katz, president and CEO of Katz Networks. “Today, while consumer interest in the real-life drama of true-crime programming is at an all-time high, there is no dedicated daily court coverage on television. We expect the new Court TV to fill that void on cable, satellite, over-the-air and over-the-top.”
One key component of the strategy, Katz said in the official announcement, is to leverage archival footage of more than 1,000 trials. The company described that cache as “a wealth of content that will allow Court TV to enhance new courtroom coverage, revisit past trials and create original programming and specials.”
Brian Lawlor, president of Local Media for Scripps, said the parent company and Katz Networks “look forward to reestablishing Court TVs important legacy of providing Americans with transparency into the U.S. courts system and fulfilling our company mission of journalism and public service.”
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