TruTV

As Court TV

The Courtroom Television Network, or Court TV for short, was launched on July 1, 1991 at 6:00 am Eastern Time, and was available to three million subscribers.^[2] Its original anchors were 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 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 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 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 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.

Relaunch as truTV

Previous truTV Logo used from January 1, 2008 to October 26, 2014.

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, such as Black Gold, Hardcore Pawn, Lizard Lick Towing, Ocean Force, and the caught-on-camera series World's Dumbest. The network 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.^[6][7][8]

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.^[9]

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 archived programming under the banner In Session Presents.^[10][11]

Reruns of CourtTV 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.^{[12][13][14][15]}

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 repositoning for the 2014-15 television season aimed towards "funseekers", with a focus on comedy-oriented docusoaps, semi-scripted series, sketch comedies and reality competitions.^[16][17][18]

Building upon the success of Impractical Jokers (which Linn compared to a "canary in the coal mine" due to its contrasting premise to other truTV programs at the time) 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 re-launch, a new branding campaign ("Way More Fun") and refreshed logo (temporarily branding the network as The New truTV) were introduced on-air on October 27, 2014; the branding is meant to portray the network in a lighter manner.^[16][17][18]

Since the repositioning, TruTV has also parodied its temporary prominence during the NCAA tournament with various advertising campaigns, commenting upon viewers who were unaware of the channel and trying to locate it on their local lineups. These campaigns have included the social media campaign "#HaveUFoundtrutv" in 2015, and a "truTV Awareness Month" campaign in 2018 (which focused on promoting the network's original series to viewers who did not normally watch the channel outside of the tournament). 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".^[19][20]

In December 2016, truTV unveiled a new marketing campaign and slogan, "Funny Because It's tru". The campaign reinforces the network's focus on comedy by showcasing its stars in advertising that parodies "the cliches of network television promos".^[21]

Sports programming

On February 8, 2010, TruTV premiered NFL Full Contact, a show that gave a behind-the-scenes look at the television production for major football events such as the Super Bowl, the NFL Draft, the Pro Bowl, and the season opener; the show was not renewed for a second season.

On March 15, 2011, TruTV began airing live sports programming for the first time with its telecasts of the 2011 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. The agreement is part of a contract between Turner Sports and CBS Sports resulting in shared coverage of the NCAA Tournament through 2024. TruTV features games up until the Elite 8 round, and is the exclusive broadcaster of the tournament's recently-introduced "First Four" round. In addition to games, TruTV broadcasts the postgame studio show Inside March Madness, which airs following that day's game slate. Until its discontinuation, TruTV also aired the pre-season Coaches vs. Cancer Classic. In May 2016, TruTV broadcast the opening rounds of the inaugural NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship; Turner would also televise the event in 2017.^[23][24]

In March 2015, TruTV announced that it would begin to air MetroPCS Friday Night Knockout—co-produced between Turner Sports and sister network HBO, the series will feature weekly boxing events from the Top Rank promotion, and lead into major fights being televised by HBO the following night. The series premiered on May 1, 2015.^[25][26]

Canada

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.

The U.S. version of CourtTV 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.^[28] However, Court TV/TruTV was never withdrawn as an eligible foreign service for carriage on cable and satellite, meaning that, particularly with the end of the licensing agreement with CTV, there are few theoretical hurdles preventing TruTV from re-emerging at some point in the future on Canadian service providers,^[29] but rights to its original programs (now mostly comedic in scope) have been dispersed across other Canadian cable channels.

Latin America

The channel was launched on April 1, 2009, in Latin America replacing Retro, also owned by Turner Broadcasting System. The announcement was made on March 25, 2009, by Turner Broadcasting System Latin America.^[30] The channel has the same programming, idents, and bumpers from the U.S. version.

UK and Ireland

In May 2014, Turner Broadcasting System announced that they would launch a separate UK version of the U.S. channel. On February 16, 2017, Sony Pictures Television acquired the channel from Turner.^[31]

Asia

The channel was launched on April 1, 2010, in several markets in Asia including Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore. The channel is owned and operated by Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific and has similar programming, idents, and bumpers to the U.S. version, but many are also created by the Turner regional office in Hong Kong.