The new Court TV, available over the air and on some cable providers after a hiatus lasting more than a decade, will look a lot like the old version that made a name for itself serving legal junkies a steady diet of crime stories in the trial-crazy 1990s, the Associated Press reports. “The timing could not be better,” said John Alleva, a lawyer and producer on the former Court TV who now is its vice president and managing editor. “The interest in true crime and this type of programming has reached a fever pitch. We’re in a perfect situation.”
Court TV’s previous owner, Time Warner, rebranded it truTV in 2008 to showcase reality shows, phasing out its court coverage. The intervening years have seen a popularity surge in podcasts like “Serial,” TV trial reenactments such as “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” and a slew of Netflix crime documentaries including “Making a Murderer.” Katz Networks, a division of the E.W. Scripps Company, which has a long history in journalism, is taking a shot that the public’s interest will take hold for Court TV once again. The channel’s first live coverage inside a courtroom will be the Covington, Georgia, trial of parents charged with the murder of their newborn baby after they had reported him missing in 2017. The revived channel’s online component will include a livestream of its telecasts, access to its library of older trials, and the ability to quickly catch up with an ongoing trial.