• by Wayne Friedman , November 7, 2023

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.

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.