TruTV
TruTV is an American basic cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel primarily broadcasts reruns of comedy, docusoaps and reality shows, with a recent strong primetime focus on live sports. The channel was originally launched on December 14, 1990 as Court TV, a network that focused on crime-themed programs such as true crime documentary series, legal dramas, and coverage of prominent criminal cases. The channel was initially a joint venture between Time Warner, Cablevision, American Lawyer Media, Liberty Media, and GE, with Liberty joining the venture a year after its launch in 1991.
By 2005, Liberty Media and Time Warner had purchased ALM, Cablevision and GE's stakes in Court TV. Time Warner subsequently bought out Liberty's share in 2006 for $735 million, and brought the channel under the Turner Broadcasting System. In 2008, the channel relaunched as TruTV, changing its focus to action-oriented docusoaps and "caught on camera" programs, which it marketed as "actuality" television. The channel continued to carry legal coverage during the daytime hours under the title In Session, but that was phased out by September 2013. The Court TV name was later bought by Katz Broadcasting, which since 2017 has been part of the E. W. Scripps Company.
In 2011, the channel began to add occasional sports broadcasts from Turner Sports, primarily the NCAA men's basketball tournament. In October 2014, TruTV pivoted its format to focus more on comedy-based reality series, such as Impractical Jokers. In March 2024, TruTV began to increase its focus on sports programming, introducing a weeknight block that will feature sports-related programming, as well as being incorporated into new and upcoming TNT Sports rights such as MotoGP and NASCAR. TruTV was available to approximately 91 million households in the United States. By June 2023, this number has dropped to 68.3 million households.
History
Court TV
The Courtroom Television Network, or Court TV for short, was launched on July 1, 1991, at 6:00 a.m. Eastern Time, and was available to three million subscribers. 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 GE. Both projects were present at the National Cable Television Association in June 1990. 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 channel originally consisted of live courtroom trials that are 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 1997, Time Warner acquired ALM to gain ownership of its stake in Court TV; it subsequently sold its publications to a private equity fund in 1998. In 1998, GE 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.
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. In the same year, Court TV also purchased the website Crime Library, which provided detailed information about infamous crimes and how they were solved. The website remained an actively updated TruTV 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.
Recognizing the growth of its primetime 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—promoted under the tagline "Seriously Entertaining"—focused on reality shows dealing with crime-related topics. In January 2006, the network launched a male-targeted programming block known as "RED".
In May 2006, Time Warner acquired Liberty Media's stake in Court TV for $735 million, valuing the channel at $1.5 billion. The channel was integrated into Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting unit; executives indicated that Court TV planned to maintain its existing format, and did not rule out creating synergies with CNN for their legal coverage. In 2007, the channel premiered its first original scripted series, 'Til Death Do Us Part—an anthology of crime re-enactments hosted by filmmaker John Waters.
TruTV
On July 11, 2007, Time Warner 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, such as Black Gold, Hardcore Pawn, Lizard Lick Towing, Ocean Force, and the caught-on-camera series World's Dumbest.... TruTV promoted its new positioning under the slogan "Not Reality. Actuality."; network staff argued that the term "reality" had become associated with "unrealistic" programming, and that it wanted to emphasize that its new programs would feature "real" people.As part of the re-branding as TruTV, daytime trial coverage was cut back to 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET and branded as In Session. In 2009, production of the program was shifted to the facilities of HLN in Atlanta. On March 4, 2013, In Session was cut to a two-hour, taped format. On September 30, 2013, In Session was cancelled, and replaced by a block of library programming under the title In Session Presents.
In 2011, as part of a new partnership between CBS Sports and Turner Sports, TruTV began to broadcast coverage of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament.
Reruns of Court TV series have since aired on HLN, 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. In December 2018, Turner sold the rights to the Court TV brand and programming library to the E. W. Scripps Company's Katz Broadcasting unit, which relaunched it as an over-the-air digital network in May 2019, reviving the dormant brand after 11 years.
Shift to comedy
Although noting that it had experienced "tremendous success" with individual programs, TruTV's new president and head of programming Chris Linn explained that the network's overall growth as a brand had been hindered due to its lingering association with Court TV and its tone of programming, and its reliance on "conflict-reliant, heavy, dramatic and maybe overly produced" docuseries with derivative premises. In April 2014, the network announced that it would undergo a brand repositioning for the 2014–15 television season aimed towards "funseekers", with a focus on comedy-oriented docusoaps, semi-scripted series, sketch comedies and reality competitions.Building upon the success of Impractical Jokers and The Carbonaro Effect, the network greenlit a number of new series as part of the re-launch, including Barmageddon, the "reality musical" Branson Famous, Fake Off, Hack My Life, and Kart Life. As part of the relaunch, a new marketing campaign and updated logo were introduced on October 27, 2014, with the channel being temporarily marketed as "The New truTV" to emphasize the change in format.
Since the repositioning, TruTV has also parodied its temporary prominence during the NCAA tournament with various advertising campaigns, seeking to promote the channel and its programming to the expanded audience. A common theme of these campaigns, which have included the 2015 social media campaign "#HaveUFoundtrutv", and a "truTV Awareness Month" campaign in 2018, involved commenting upon viewers who were having trouble finding TruTV on their television provider's lineup, or were unaware of the channel entirely. Of the former, Puja Vohra, Senior vice president of marketing and digital, explained that the campaign was intended to portray the network's brand as being "fun" and "self-aware".
In December 2016, truTV unveiled a new marketing campaign and slogan, "Funny Because It's tru". The campaign reinforced the network's focus on comedy by satirizing the "cliches" of television promos.
On March 4, 2019, AT&T announced a major reorganization of its broadcasting assets to effectively dissolve Turner Broadcasting. Its assets were dispersed across multiple units of WarnerMedia with TruTV along with TBS, TNT and HBO moving to newly formed WarnerMedia Entertainment.