Bounce TV is an American digital broadcast television network owned by Scripps Networks, a subsidiary of E. W. Scripps Company. It launched on September 26, 2011, and was promoted as "the first 24/7 digital multicast broadcast network created to target African Americans". Bounce features a mix of original and acquired programming geared toward African Americans between 25 and 54 years of age.
The network has affiliates with terrestrial television and television station in many media markets through digital subchannels. It is also available on the digital cable tiers of select cable providers at the discretion of local affiliates, as well as on Dish Network, DirecTV and Frndly TV.
History Founding and launch The founding group and initial ownership team included Martin Luther King III; former mayor of Atlanta, Georgia and ambassador of the United States to the United Nations; Andrew Young and his son Andrew "Bo" Young III; Rob Hardy; and Will Packer. Hardy and Packer are also co-founders of Rainforest Films, a top African-American production company. Spearheading the network's creation were former Turner Broadcasting System executives Jonathan Katz and Ryan Glover with the pair having previously worked together with Tyler Perry to produce a number of high-order African-American sitcoms for TBS. Currently, Glover is president of Bounce TV and Katz is Chief Operating Officer. The "Bounce TV" name was chosen as a branding avenue to signify that the network is "going somewhere with energy".
The network formally launched on September 26, 2011 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time Zone, with the 1978 musical film The Wiz as its inaugural broadcast followed by A Raisin in the Sun with Do the Right Thing in primetime. The movie in primetime on the second day was Spike Lee's School Daze. This would be followed two days later with its first sports telecast, Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association football.
In 2012, Bounce began airing original programming. Its first was the documentary Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Historical Perspective on January 16, 2012, in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. On June 18, 2012, Bounce premiered the sitcom Family Time, and the stand-up comedy series Uptown Comic.
The network acquired its first sitcoms in January 2015. It acquired the rights to four series through deals with Warner Bros. Television Studios (The Parent 'Hood and Roc), The Carsey–Warner Company (A Different World), CBS Television Distribution/Big Ticket Entertainment (Judge Joe Brown), 20th Television (The Hughleys) and Trifecta Entertainment & Media (Judge Faith). The 1990s CBS series Cosby was immediately removed from Bounce's schedule on July 7, 2015 after Bill Cosby's past admissions about his sexual assault allegations were publicized.
Bounce would premiere several notable original programs and tent-pole event broadcasts in 2016. On Friday, January 29, the network broadcast the 24th Annual Trumpet Awards; which honored history-making individuals. On March 6, 2016, Bounce debuted its original primetime soap, Saints & Sinners. The series premiere was watched in 1.3 million viewers, making it Bounce TV's most-watched program at the time. The network's first primetime news magazine, Ed Gordon, was announced in late June 2016, and premiered on Tuesday, September 13.
Scripps ownership On October 2, 2017, E. W. Scripps Company purchased Bounce TV, along with Katz Broadcasting's three other networks. A list of 2019 Nielsen Media Research ratings published by Variety indicated that Bounce averaged 275,000 viewers in prime time, down 1% from the 2018 average.
Bounce and sister channel Grit TV were added to DirecTV on September 1, 2022.(https://www.directv.com/binge/directv-adds-bounce-and-grit-to-channel-lineup/ )
On April 23, 2024, it was reported that Scripps is looking to sell Bounce TV.
Programming
Bounce TV features programming geared toward an African-American audience that skews older than the demographic of most cable networks (such as rival cable network BET); primarily adults between the ages of 25 and 54. The network's main programming features a mix of scripted series reruns and feature film telecasts. Unlike most digital multicast services (particularly with the January 2015 shutdown of Localish, which mainly carried first-run content), Bounce also produces its own original programming. The network has produced inspirational and music programming, documentaries, scripted comedies and dramas, films, and specials.
Sports Shortly before its launch, Bounce TV reached an agreement with the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (a league that includes several historically black colleges and universities) to acquire the television rights to broadcast its American football and basketball games; the telecasts were produced by Urban Sports Entertainment Group. The first sports broadcast on Bounce TV aired on September 28, 2011, a college football game between Bowie State University and Virginia Union University. Bounce's HBCU-centered sports programming expanded in 2013 before ceasing prior to the 2014 season (with Aspire acquiring the rights to some of the HBCU football telecasts).
On May 7, 2015, Bounce TV announced that they would be airing live boxing events from Premier Boxing Champions under the title: PBC: The Next Round.
List of programs broadcast by Bounce TV Current programming Original Title Genre Premiere Seasons Length Status Mind Your Business Sitcom June 1, 2024 Pending
Syndicated
The Bernie Mac Show Couples Court with the Cutlers Family Feud Favorites Inspiration Ministries Campmeeting In the Heat of the Night The Jennifer Hudson Show Karamo Lauren Lake's Paternity Court NCIS: Los Angeles Someone They Knew with Tamron Hall S.W.A.T. Tamron Hall
Former original programming Drama Title Genre Premiere Finale Seasons Length Notes Saints & Sinners Crime drama March 6, 2016 May 22, 2022 Johnson Comedy drama August 1, 2021 October 5, 2024
Comedy Title Genre Premiere Finale Seasons Length Notes Family Time Sitcom June 18, 2012 December 16, 2020 One Love Sitcom April 8, 2014 May 27, 2014 Mann & Wife Sitcom April 7, 2015 May 23, 2017 In the Cut Sitcom August 25, 2015 September 30, 2020 Grown Folks Sitcom October 2, 2017 December 18, 2017 Last Call Sitcom January 14, 2019 April 1, 2019 My Crazy Roommate Sitcom October 14, 2019 December 16, 2019 Finding Happy Comedy September 24, 2022 November 19, 2022 Act Your Age Sitcom March 4, 2023 July 29, 2023
Docuseries Title Subject Premiere Finale Seasons Length Notes Dying to Be Famous: The Ryan Singleton Mystery True crime November 1, 2020 November 29, 2020 Miniseries
Reality Title Subject Premiere Finale Seasons Length Notes Forever Jones Docu-reality December 18, 2012 July 10, 2013
Variety Title Genre Premiere Finale Seasons Length Notes Uptown Comic Stand-up comedy June 18, 2012 October 15, 2012 Off the Chain Stand-up comedy October 22, 2012 December 15, 2015 Ed Gordon Newsmagazine September 13, 2016 February 17, 2018
Former syndicated programming
America's Black Forum A Different World B. Smith with Style Black and Blue Black College Quiz Catch 21 The Cosby Show Cosby Everybody Hates Chris Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids Forgive or Forget The Game Greenleaf Half & Half Hot Bench The Hughleys Judge Faith Judge Hatchett Judge Joe Brown Law & Order Living Single Moesha NCIS: New Orleans The Newlywed Game Nick Cannon OJ25 One on One The Parent 'Hood Personal Injury Court The Real (day-after repeats) Roc Scandal Sherri Soul Train The Wendy Williams Show (day-after repeats) With Drawn Arms Without a Trace
Affiliates
As of December 2014, Bounce TV has current or pending affiliation agreements with television stations in 43 media markets encompassing 22 states and the Washington, D.C., covering 73% of all households of at least one television set in the United States and 90% of African-American households. The network encourages its affiliates to carry local news programming in place of regular programming on the Bounce-affiliated subchannel, as a way to attract additional viewers to that subchannel and serve the local market. Affiliates also broadcast local public affairs programs, political specials, and college football and basketball games played by predominantly black schools. In Bounce TV's Home city Atlanta, ABC affiliate WSB-TV (channel 2), owned by Cox Media Group, is the Atlanta affiliate for Bounce TV.
Before its launch, Bounce TV actively sought affiliation agreements with various television station owners to make the network widely available throughout the United States. The network launched with clearance rate of, at minimum, 32% of overall American television households, in part due to affiliation agreements with stations owned by Nexstar Media Group, Gray Television, Lockwood Broadcast Group, and the E. W. Scripps Company.
In November 2011, Bounce TV reached a groupwide affiliation deal with Fox Television Stations to carry the network on the subchannels of its MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated station in markets such as New York City (WWOR-TV) and Los Angeles (KCOP-TV). The deal, which marked Fox Television Station's first multicasting arrangement, put Bounce TV over its earlier stated goal of reaching at least 50% of overall U.S. television households. The network also began to be cleared on subchannels of eight Raycom Media-owned stations as 2012 began.
In December 2012, the network signed a multi-station agreement with Spanish language broadcaster Univision Communications to carry its programming on seven of its Univision and UniMás owned-and-operated television stations (besides being the company's first multicasting agreement, it was also Univision Television Group's first affiliation deal involving an English language network). As part of an extension of this agreement in March 2014, Bounce TV will move its affiliation in five markets where it had existing affiliation deals with Fox at the time of the deal (New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas, Orlando, Florida, and Phoenix, Arizona) to stations owned by Univision in 2015. The Fox deal ended after the 2015 launch of game show channel Buzzr, with Bounce then moving in full to Univision stations after that point.
On June 15, 2016, Katz Broadcasting (whose president and CEO Jonathan Katz is COO of Bounce TV) signed an agreement with Nexstar Broadcasting Group that would bring Bounce TV to 15 new markets, as part of a massive rollout also involving Katz's three networks Escape, Laff, and Grit. In 2019, Raycom merged with Gray Television, which will maintain their Bounce affiliations as-is.
Although Bounce TV prefers that its local affiliates carry the entire schedule, some affiliates regularly pre-empt certain network programs in order to air morning and/or prime time newscasts produced by the station specifically for the subchannel or public affairs programs (such as with WBTV in Charlotte and WAVE-TV in Louisville); this has become particularly more common since September 2015, when other Gray Television-owned stations in markets where the group does not maintain a duopoly (as is the case with WBTV and WAVE-TV, which launched theirs earlier) gradually began launching prime time newscasts on their Bounce TV-affiliated subchannels. Some of the major network affiliates that carry Bounce TV full-time (such as WBTV, WAVE-TV and WAFF in Huntsville) use the affiliated subchannel as a buffer during network sports coverage, breaking news or severe weather coverage situations to carry regularly scheduled network and/or syndicated programming seen on its main channel.
Following Scripps' acquisition of Ion Media on January 7, 2021, Scripps began to wind down the Univision deal, and Bounce TV was moved off those stations to Ion Media stations at the start of March, though it remains on a Univision station in markets where Scripps or Ion do not operate stations.
Bounce Media