Court TV is taking its brand of real-life trial drama to the United Kingdom with a new channel carried by Sky Television.
The channel will carry the gavel-to-gavel courtroom coverage Court TV televises during the day time in the U.S. will air in prime time in the U.K.
Court TV is planning content to explain the differences between the U.S. and the U.K. for U.K. audiences. One key difference: cameras are allowed in many U.S. courtrooms, but they aren’t allowed in the U.K.
“There’s been nothing like Court TV in the United Kingdom until now,” said Jonathan Katz, CEO of Katz Networks, part of The E.W. Scripps Co, which owns Court TV.
“American crime dramas have long been a staple on television worldwide, including the U.K., while global consumer interest in the real-life drama of true-crime programming has skyrocketed, with American reality crime content as the most-watched,” Katz said. “Court TV is the only network covering these cases and these events live, as they happen, from start to finish. We anticipate viewers in the U.K. will embrace having a front-row seat to American criminal justice.”
Katz said it expects more U.K. distribution agreements to be announced in the near future.
Among the trials Court TV plans to cover and air in both the U.S. and the U.K., include the case of the four Minneapolis police officers accused in the death of George Floyd and the three white men accused of murder in the death of Ahmaud Arbery.
In addition to its trial coverage,Court TV also features exclusive original programming, including documentaries and docu-series built around the nearly 100,000 hours of trial footage from the original Court TV library, which Scripps acquired.
Scripps and Katz launched a new version of Court TV in May 2019. The original Court TV closed in 2008.
