Court TV

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.[2] Its original anchors were Vinnie Politan, Fred Graham, Cynthia McFadden, and Terry Moran. 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.[3] 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 Menendez 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, Cops, and Forensic Files.

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. 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. The change was made on January 1, 2008.

Reruns of Court TV series have since aired on HLN (primarily Forensic Files) and have also been syndicated to the over-the-air digital network 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 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. Entertainment.[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.

The relaunched Court TV features live court coverage with original 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. In subsequent months, the channel launched its coverage of the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault trial[12] and the disappearance of Tylee Ryan and J. J. Vallow.

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

Court TV (British and Irish TV channel)

Country	USA
Broadcast area	United Kingdom, Ireland
Network	Sony Pictures Television
Headquarters	Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Programming
Language(s)	English
Picture format	16:9 SDTV
Ownership
Owner	Katz Broadcasting, LLC (E. W. Scripps Company)
History
Launched	8 September 2020 (8 September 2020).
Replaced	Sony Crime Channel
Links
Website	CourtTV.com
Availability
Satellite
Astra 28.2°E	11568 V DVB-S QPSK 22 5/6
Sky	Channel 179 (SD)
Streaming media
Court TV	Watch online

On 10 August 2020, Court TV began testing on Astra 28.2°E on frequency 11568 V DVB-S QPSK 22 5/6, with the label "54140".[17]

On 1 September 2020, Court TV was added to the EPG on Sky on channel 179 ahead of its official launch on 8 September 2020 as a replacement of Sony Crime Channel, according to on-screen information.

On September 30, 2019, the Escape network was rebranded as Court TV Mystery, serving as an extension to the Court TV brand.[18]

Court TV relaunched its satellite radio channel on May 15, 2020 on SiriusXM.[19]

Court TV Canada Logo

Court TV Canada, a Canadian version of the channel under its previous format, owned by CHUM Limited (and later acquired by CTVglobemedia which then sold its assets to Bell Canada under the Bell 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 with Discovery Communications and CTV, Court TV was replaced by Investigation Discovery (Canada).

The U.S. version of Court TV had earlier been approved by the Canadian 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.[20]

In 2001, Court TV purchased The Smoking Gun, a website that focuses on legal items such as mug 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.[21]

Court TV purchased the website Crime 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 on Sirius 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.