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| Type | Digital over-the-air television network |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Broadcast area | Nationwide viaOTA digital television |
| Affiliates | List of Court TV affiliates |
| Headquarters | Atlanta, Georgia |
| Programming | |
| Picture format | |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Scripps Networks, LLC (E. W. Scripps Company) |
| Parent | Court TV Media LLC |
| Key people |
|
| History | |
| Founded | December 14, 1990; 34 years ago (1990-12-14) |
| Launched |
|
| Founder | Steven Brill |
| Closed | December 31, 2007; 17 years ago (2007-12-31) (cable network) |
| Replaced by | TruTV (cable network, United States) Court TV Canada (Canadian feed) |
| Links | |
| Website | www |
| Availability | |
| Streaming media | |
| Service(s) | DirecTV Stream,Frndly TV,FuboTV,Google TV,Haystack News,LG Channels,Pluto TV,Samsung TV Plus,Sling Freestream,TCL TV+,The Roku Channel,Tubi,Video Watch Free+,Xumo Play,YouTube 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 astrue crime documentary series, legal analysis talk shows, and live news coverage of prominent criminal cases. In 2008, the original cable channel becameTruTV.
The channel relaunched on May 8, 2019, as adigital broadcast television network owned byScripps Networks, a subsidiary of theE. W. Scripps Company. Court TV is also available via streaming andFAST such asYouTube TV andThe Roku Channel, but its audio feed is also available onSirius XM channel 793.
Cable television channelCourtroom Television Network, known as Court TV, was launched on July 1, 1991, at 6:00 am Eastern Time by founderSteven Brill and was available to three million subscribers.[1] Its original anchors wereJack Ford,Fred Graham,Cynthia McFadden, andGregg Jarrett. The network was born out of two competing projects to launch cable channels with live courtroom proceedings, the American Trial Network fromTime Warner andAmerican Lawyer Media, and In Court fromCablevision andNBC. Both projects were present at theNational 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 writerSteven Brill, who later left the network in 1997. The network came into its own during theMenéndez brothers' first trial in 1993, and theO.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 asHomicide: Life on the Street, andForensic Files. In 1999, it acquired the rerun rights toFox'sCops.[3]
Recognizing the growth of itsprime time programming, Court TV announced in 2005 that it would split its programming into two brands. Daytime trial coverage was branded asCourt TV News while otherdayparts were branded under the taglineSeriously Entertaining; this programming would feature newreality 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'sTurner 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 astruTV on January 1, 2008. The new brand was intended to accompany a larger shift towards action-orientedreality series which did not necessarily involve crime or law enforcement.
Reruns of Court TV series then aired on HLN (primarilyForensic Files) and the over-the-air digital networkTrue 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]
On December 10, 2018,Katz Broadcasting (owned by theE. 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 fromTurner Broadcasting System andWarner Bros. Television Studios.[10] Scripps announced affiliation deals withTribune Media andUnivision Communications at that date, in addition to existing Scripps-owned stations.[10] Further deals withMeredith Corporation,Nexstar Media Group (which was in the process of acquiring Tribune; the deal closed in September 2019),Tegna, andQuincy Media were announced on May 2, 2019.[11] The channel is also available nationally onPluto TV andHaystack News.
The relaunched Court TV features live court coverage with former Court TV anchorVinnie Politan as lead anchor. 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 theHarvey Weinstein sexual assault trial[12] and thetrial ofKyle Rittenhouse.
In May 2020, the network was picked up for carriage onYouTube TV.[13]
Following Scripps acquisition ofIon Media in 2021, it began to add Court TV to its stations in place of the defunctQubo network.[14]
Court TV currently shows gavel to gavel live news trial coverage under the brandingCourt TV Live. Julie Grant hostsOpening Statements from 8 am to 9 am ET, and is joined in later dayparts withTed Rowlands, Ashley Willcott, Michael Ayala and Julia Jenaé.[16]Vinnie Politan anchorsClosing Arguments with Vinnie Politan from 8 pm to 10 pm, and the show is repeated overnight.
Court TV's original programming traditionally consisted of reality legal programming andlegal drama, such as legal-based news shows, legal-based talk shows, live homicide trial coverage,court shows, police force shows, and other criminal justice programming. The channel also carried a week-daily news block,In Session (the successor toCourt TV News), which providedlivenews coverage oftrials, legalnews and details of highly publicized crimes Monday through Fridays from 9 to 11 a.m. ET (except during national holidays, with reruns of the channel's reality programming airing in place of the block on such days). Its coverage included analysis from anchors and guests to help viewers understand legal proceedings.In Session also ran a blog,Sidebar, where theIn Session team posted updated legal news and analysis.
On August 11, 2020, it was announced that a new original true-crime series titledJudgment with Ashleigh Banfield will premiere on September 13, 2020.[17]
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| Country | United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | United Kingdom,Ireland |
| Headquarters | London, England. |
| Programming | |
| Language | English |
| Picture format | 16:9SDTV |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Katz Broadcasting, LLC (E. W. Scripps Company) |
| History | |
| Launched | September 8, 2020; 5 years ago (2020-09-08). |
| Replaced | Sony Crime Channel |
| Links | |
| Website | CourtTV.com |
| Availability | |
| Streaming media | |
| Court TV | Watch online |
On August 10, 2020, Court TV began testing onAstra 28.2°E on frequency 11568 V DVB-S QPSK 22 5/6, with the label "54140".[18]
On September 1, 2020, Court TV was added to theEPG onSky on channel 179 ahead of its official launch on September 8, 2020, as a replacement ofSony Crime Channel, according to on-screen information.
On February 15, 2021, Court TV joined theFreeview television service in the UK with a short-term deal in order to show thetrial of Derek Chauvin.[19][20] It was found on channel 89[21] and joined the Law & Crime Trial Network as part of the service's offerings (though this other network is currently found as part of the streaming options on channel 271, as it is broadcast via Channelbox).[22] On June 1, 2021, Court TV shut down on Freeview, less than four months after starting, with its channel number de-activated on June 22.[23][24]
Court TV can also be found onFreesat channel 177[25]
Court TV Canada, a Canadian version of the channel under its previous format, owned byCHUM Limited (and later acquired byCTVglobemedia which then sold its assets toBell Canada under theBell Media subsidiary), launched on September 7, 2001. Unlike its U.S. counterpart, it did not re-brand under the TruTV name and continued to operate as Court TV until August 30, 2010, when, as part of a wider licensing agreement withDiscovery Communications andCTV, Court TV was rebranded to Investigation Discovery and then again in 2025 to Oxygen in partnership withNBCUniversal.
The U.S. version of Court TV had earlier been approved by theCanadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission as an eligible foreign channel in 1997, and indeed, had been carried by several Canadian service providers prior to the launch of the domestic service.[26]
In 2001, Court TV purchasedThe Smoking Gun, a website that focuses on legal items such asmug shots and other public documents pertaining to famous individuals and cases. The site remained a property of the company through the rebranding to TruTV, but was sold back to its founder in 2014.[27]
Court TV purchased the websiteCrime Library, which provided detailed information about infamous crimes and how they were solved, in 2001. The website remained an actively updated property until 2014 and was taken offline in 2015.
On February 3, 2003,Court TV Plus debuted onSirius Satellite Radio, featuring audio from Court TV programs. Launched on Channel 134, it was moved in September 2005 and aired on Channel 110 until the channel ceased operations on January 1, 2008. Scripps relaunched it overSiriusXM on May 15, 2020,[28] but again wound it down on April 21, 2022, after expanding the channel's AVOD video availability as duplicative.
On September 30, 2019, the Escape network was rebranded asCourt TV Mystery, serving as an extension to the Court TV brand.[29] The network was subsequently rebranded toIon Mystery on February 24, 2022, with the "Ion" brand now more established regardingprocedural dramas in general, including Ion Mystery's overall programming, whereas Court TV is more associated with its news division.[30]
