Atlanta company to revive Court TV in 2019

It’s not just TV shows like “Will & Grace” and “Trading Spaces” being revived. Now it’s cable networks, too.

Atlanta-based Katz Broadcasting, part of E.W. Scripps, has purchased the intellectual property ofCourtTVf rom Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting and will revive the network in May 2019.

Katz now owns the Court TV trademark, the website and the complete, original 100,000-hour library.

Vinnie Politan, who recently stepped down as an evening anchor at 11Alive, will return to Court TV as lead anchor, a job he first had in 2001.

“T his was by far the bes tfitthat could keep me in town and do what I love,” said Politan, a former lawyer and prosecutor. “It’s really full circle. The last time I felt this excited was when I got the call from Cour t TV the last time around.”

Th ene twork said it will offer live, gavel-to-gavel coverage, indepth legal reporting and expert analysis of the nation’s biggest trials.

Court TV already has commitments that will cover about 50 percent of U.S. television households at launch. There is no home yet in Atlanta, but the compan yexpec ts to have one before launch date.

Turner debuted Court TV in 1991 and over the years covered some of the biggest cases, such as O.J. Simpson, the Menendez brothers and Ca seyA nthony.

Katz Broadcasting President and CEO Jonathan Katz, who approached Turner about Court

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TV’s intellectual assets, noted that the network was still immensely popular when Turner took it off the air. To him, it remains an iconic brand.

And the appetite for crime shows has only grown. Since Court TV went away, entire cable networks have sprouted up to cover true crime, from ID to Oxygen Network to the Justice Network. But the one thing Court TV will focus on that others don’t is live court coverage.

“We believe the timing is perfect to reboot Court TV and fill that gap for consumers,” Katz wrote. “We plan to make the new Court TV the gold standard in legal journalism — providing Americans with transparency into the U.S. courts system, delivering real-life drama as it unfolds in the courtroom and telling compelling stories based on events in the criminal justice system that aren’t being told in any other medium today.”

Bob Thompson, who runs the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, said Court TV may face more competition than it did in the 1990s, but at the same time, he thinks the fans of the original network will seek it out. “I’m excited to see how they’ll use all that old Court TV footage,” he said. “It’s not exactly the MGM or Disney library, but there is some hot stuff there.”

Politan was a key piece of the Court TV puzzle back in the day, so bringing him back was a no-brainer for Katz.

“Vinnie is a smart, seasoned and insightful journalist who takes his responsibility to viewers very seriously,” Katz said. “He brings immediate credibility to the anchor desk and is the right person to lead the charge of the new Court TV.”

Turner Broadcasting eliminated Court TV about 11 years ago and gradually cut actual judicial-based coverage when it became truTV, now a fulltime comedy-based cable network. Some of Court TV’s programming eventually migrated to Turner sister station HLN, but live court coverage is no longer part of HLN’s modus operandi. (HLN does still air some crime-oriented shows.)

Katz used to work at Turner Broadcasting. His company’s most successful network is Bounce TV, which pulls in solid numbers from African-American households. Katz founded the company in 2014 and sold it to Scripps in 2017.