Scripps Broadcasting has announced plans to add over-the-air coverage for Newsy, with affiliates expected in several Upper Midwest markets.
Newsy got its start as an online streaming service more than a decade ago and will launch Oct. 1 on subchannels of Scripps-owned stations, including ION stations that Scripps brought earlier this year, as well as some stations owned by other groups. Regionally, Scripps owns stations in the Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Wausau, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, and Omaha markets.
“Amid an increasingly polarized and divided national climate, Newsy will seize upon this opportunity to serve more Americans seeking quality objective journalism,” Scripps Networks President Lisa Knutson said in a news release.
“As TV viewers ‘self-bundle’ by combining free television with subscription video-on-demand services, Newsy will build on its successes in OTT by joining the other Scripps Networks in the over the air marketplace to bring these viewers high-quality, free news programming,” Knutson said.
Newsy will join NBC LX and NewsNet in the genre of 24-hour news networks on broadcast TV. With planned carriage in markets representing 80% of TV households at launch, Newsy may have much wider distribution than its competitors.
As a broadcast network, Newsy will be based in Atlanta and will use content from bureaus in Washington and Chicago as well as from Scripps’ local TV newsrooms. It will continue to be available on streaming platforms as well.
Scripps is one of several national TV group owners seeking to repurpose its local news content on a national platform. The field also includes Nexstar’s NewsNation, Sinclair’s The National Desk, and Gray TV’s Local News Live.
Scripps is also preparing two other networks, TrueReal and Defy, for launches this summer (TrueReal had been called Doozy in an earlier news release). It already runs ION, Court TV, Court TV Mystery, Bounce, Grit, and Laff.