• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, March 14, 2007

Court TV will change its name next year -- but will advertisers change their plea?

The channel's longtime problem has always been the lurid nature of some of its programming -- particularly in daytime, with those real-life, set-in-courtroom cases. How do you get advertisers interested in real-life grisly murder, rape, and mayhem?

That's always been the million-dollar upfront question. So now Time Warner, under Turner Broadcasting, says perhaps it's the name that's the problem -- Court TV. Perhaps it sounds too serious, too TV program limiting.

Court TV's main prime-time content is "Forensic Files," a real-life "CSI" show that occupies a lot of time on the schedule. This seems to mimic what CBS does fictionally in prime time with all its procedural crime dramas, including three separate hour-long "CSI" franchises. Criminals have always had their home, their place on TV.

While Court TV has made ratings gains from time to time, it has lagged in terms of improving advertising sales. That's why the network has had to bend over backwards to give advertiser what they desire. Court was one of the first to offer up "engagement" guarantee deals to media agencies.

Now part of Turner Broadcasting's array of networks, Court TV may have a somewhat easier time in getting advertising, with spillover coming its way from advertising package deals.

Turner executives must believe that those six daytime hours -- from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. -- are holding the network back. The word "court" probably sends the wrong signals to a TV public looking for broader and more varied scripted and non-scripted TV.

Of course, that's how journalist Steven Brill envisioned the whole network back when it started in 1991 -- based on real court trials. Court TV executives tried to improve on this, dabbling in airing some off-network fictional cop shows, a tactic that didn't prove entirely successful. Most recently Court TV ran the failed NBC series, "Law & Order: Trial by Jury." It also had "NYPD Blue" in its stable of shows.

Through the years the network tried to alter its image with different slogans: "The Whole Truth" for its daytime fare; "Seriously Entertaining" for its prime-time stuff.

But there was always that nasty "Court" word hanging over the doorway to the entrance of the company. What would be a better umbrella? Crimetime? TV Plea? The Chase? Innocent TV? Guilty Pleasures?

It doesn't matter. If the network keeps its hard-nosed programming intact, the name change will be just an alias for advertisers.