Looking to join the rapidly growing business
of free-ad supported digital and streaming TV networks and services, longtime digital broadcast network creator Jonathan Katz is starting up a new company, Free TV Networks.
Katz will be partnering with programmers Warner Bros. Discovery, Lionsgate and TV station owner Gray Television.
Free TV Networks will launch with
The365, for African-American viewers, and Outlaw, a network for Westerns. The channels will be offered as free, ad-supported networks, with Warner Bros.
Discovery and Lionsgate providing the content.
Both will start January 1 with 80% coverage of U.S. TV households.
Gray Television TV stations will be joined by other station groups RNN Media Group and HC2 Broadcasting.
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Later next year, the two channels will be offered as streaming
versions -- along with two other streaming networks, called VCR Action and VCR Haha.
In 2014, Katz started up locally based digital TV station-based networks like
Bounce, Court TV and Laff TV -- networks which exist on subchannels of local broadcast TV stations.
Katz says he is joining the growing race of new free over-the-air
networks and FAST streaming channels (Free Ad-Supported Television). The latter is a business with “revenue now more than $5 billion.” FAST channels include services like Tubi and
Pluto TV.
He says digital broadcast networks are now a $1 billion business.
Katz, a former Turner network program executive,
started up Katz Broadcasting in 2014, which included Bounce, Court TV, Escape, Laff, and Grit. In 2017, he sold three of these networks for $302 million to E.W. Scripps, in a deal where Scripps owned
95% of Katz Broadcasting.