Ion Plus is an American free linear television
network
Network, networking and networked may refer to:
Science and technology
* Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects
* Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks
Mathematics
...
owned by the
Katz Broadcasting
Katz Broadcasting, LLC, doing business as Scripps Networks, is an American specialized digital multicasting network media company and a subsidiary of E. W. Scripps Company. The company owns (as of 2022) nine television networks that each carry ...
subsidiary of the
E. W. Scripps Company
The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is he ...
that formerly operated as a broadcast television network until February 28, 2021. The network originally launched in 2007 as Ion Life, maintaining a format featuring lifestyle programming focused on health and wellness, cooking, home decor, and travel. With expanded cable carriage, in 2019, Ion Media converted the network into a general entertainment format that matched that of parent network
Ion Television
Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented enter ...
, featuring day-long
marathons
The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of , usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There are also wheelchair div ...
of various drama series.
Ion Plus was carried mainly as a
digital multicast service on Ion Media Networks-owned stations as well as select Ion Television
affiliates
In the broadcasting industry (particularly in North America, and even more in the United States), a network affiliate or affiliated station is a local broadcaster, owned by a company other than the owner of the network, which carries some or al ...
, usually to the third subchannel; its base national feed was also available on select
cable
Cable may refer to:
Mechanical
* Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof
* Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
and
satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...
providers. In select markets, Ion Plus has had main channel placement, allowing it
must-carry
In cable television, governments apply a must-carry regulation stating that locally licensed television stations must be carried on a cable provider's system.
North America Canada
Under current CRTC regulations, the lowest tier of service on ...
coverage on local cable and satellite services.
Ion Plus ceased broadcasting over-the-air after Ion Media's acquisition by the
E. W. Scripps Company
The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is he ...
and merger with
Katz Broadcasting
Katz Broadcasting, LLC, doing business as Scripps Networks, is an American specialized digital multicasting network media company and a subsidiary of E. W. Scripps Company. The company owns (as of 2022) nine television networks that each carry ...
,
but continues to air as an
advertising-supported video-on-demand network through several AVOD streaming services, including Samsung TV Plus, and Vizio WatchFree.
History
As a lifestyle-oriented network
The network launched on February 19, 2007, focusing on generalized health and lifestyle programming; the network replaced a three-hour
timeshift channel
A timeshift channel (sometimes referred to as a +1 channel) is a television channel carrying time-delayed reruns of its "parent" channel's programming. This channel runs alongside their parent: the term "timeshift" does not refer to a network br ...
which depending on geographical location, carried what was then called i: Independent Television's Eastern or Pacific time zone feeds. Ion Media Networks originally planned to name the network "iHealth" to match i's name, until it was subsequently rebranded as Ion Television in September of that year. The network launched as Ion Life on February 19, 2007, over the third
digital subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...
of Ion Media Networks's television stations. Under this format, it mainly aired cooking, travel, home decor,
DIY
"Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and semi ...
design and home improvement, and automotive remodeling programs; most of the shows were imported Canadian series distributed by
Bell Media
Bell Media Inc. ( French: ) is a Canadian company formed by the amalgamation of several companies.
Establishment (2011–13)
On December 9, 2011, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan announced the sale of its majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports ...
,
Corus Entertainment
Corus Entertainment Inc. is a Canadian mass media company. Formed in 1999 as a spin-off from Shaw Communications, it has prominent holdings in the radio, publishing, and television industries. It is headquartered at Corus Quay in Toronto, Onta ...
and
Shaw Media
Shaw Media was the television broadcasting division of Shaw Communications. Shaw Media owned the Global Television Network, which broadcasts nationally via 13 television stations, as well as 19 specialty channels including Slice (TV channel), Sli ...
, with some American content mixed in.
On January 14, 2008, as part of a carriage agreement that allowed the provider to continue to carry Ion Television, Ion Media Networks reached an agreement with
Comcast
Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...
to carry both Ion Life and its children's-targeted network
Qubo
Qubo ( ; stylized as qubo) was an American television network for children between the ages of 5 and 14. Owned by Ion Media, it consisted of a 24-hour free-to-air television network often mentioned as the "Qubo channel" (available as a digital ...
on its systems. Subsequently, in May 2010, Ion Media signed carriage agreements with
Advanced Cable Communications
Blue Stream provides cable television, cable telephone, DVR, and up to 1 GIG Internet speed broadband services to customers in the Florida communities of Coral Springs and Weston.
Previously named Coral Springs Cablevision, the Coral Springs po ...
and Comcast's system in
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...
to add Ion Life to digital tiers in several markets.
Even though Ion Life's parent network Ion Television overhauled its logo as part of an extensive rebranding on September 8, 2008, Ion Life retained its existing logo – a green variant of the logo Ion Television used from 2007 to 2008 – and graphics package, the latter of which remained in use until 2011. In February 2010, the network added theatrically released
feature film
A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...
s to its schedule, usually airing from 7:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.
Eastern Time
The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small port ...
(the airtimes vary, sometimes starting earlier or ending later depending on the length and number of the films) on Monday through Friday evenings. By 2012, the number of films featured on the network had decreased, with more lifestyle-oriented programming being added to its
prime time
Prime time or the peak time is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for a television show. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...
schedule; films returned to the lineup full-time the following year. During December (expanding to between
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden and ...
and
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...
in 2018), the network ran a limited selection of Christmas movies that were previously shown on Ion Television through its contracts with
MarVista Entertainment
MarVista Entertainment is an American production company, based in Westwood, Los Angeles, California. The company mainly provides financing and some original content, mainly made-for-TV films and direct-to-SVOD titles, many of which are carried b ...
and Hybrid LLC. In January 2015, Ion Life began incorporating blocks of
infomercial
An infomercial is a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of dire ...
-based and
compensated religious paid programming scheduled in an interspersed manner alongside its lifestyle programs in the morning and early afternoon.
![Ion Plus Ion Life logo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Ion_Plus_Ion_Life_logo.svg)
On March 27, 2017, Ion Life's logo was made over to match Ion Television's logo. Throughout 2017 and 2018, Ion Media has purchased several stations which have become channel sharing partners with their stations after the 2016 FCC
spectrum auction
A spectrum auction is a process whereby a government uses an auction system to sell the rights to transmit signals over specific bands of the electromagnetic spectrum and to assign scarce spectrum resources. Depending on the specific auction form ...
, specifically to exploit those stations' existing
must-carry
In cable television, governments apply a must-carry regulation stating that locally licensed television stations must be carried on a cable provider's system.
North America Canada
Under current CRTC regulations, the lowest tier of service on ...
coverage on multichannel television providers to allow the addition of Ion Life to their lineups, carriage which had been refused to the network in the past when it was exclusively transmitted as a digital subchannel. (Ion's main channel had traditionally been the only Ion Media-owned network carried on many providers.) Many of these stations were formerly owned-and-operated stations associated with the
Trinity Broadcasting Network
The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) is an international Christian-based broadcast television network and the world's largest religious television network. TBN was headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, until March 3, 2017, when it sold its ...
(TBN), which has begun a slow withdrawal from over-the-air broadcasting in non-critical markets.
As a general entertainment network; Scripps purchase
On January 1, 2019, Ion Life converted into a general entertainment service focusing on day-long
marathons
The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of , usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There are also wheelchair div ...
of drama series included as part of Ion Television's content agreements (including some programs that were previously carried on the main network). To reflect its format change from a lifestyle network and draw a connection to the new format's compliment to that of the main Ion network, on July 1 of that year, the network was relaunched as Ion Plus. The "Ion Plus" brand – following the parent network's rebrand as Ion Television in 2007 – previously was the name of a secondary Ion national feed that Paxson Communications/Ion Media Networks began distributing to cable providers in 2005, which incorporated Ion Life programming in timeslots occupied by paid programming on the main network to address concerns by providers because of the network's occupation of ¾ of its programming time with an infomercial. (During the Ion network's "i: Independent Television" branding era, replacement programming on the feed consisted of previous Pax-era series and public domain and barter syndication content; a 2008 management overhaul resulted in Ion gradually reducing its dependency on infomercials for additional revenue, eventually negating the need for the "Ion Plus" feed.)
As a general entertainment network, acquired entertainment programming was reduced to 13 hours per day (from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m.
Eastern Time
The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small port ...
), with infomercials filling the remaining overnight and morning timeslots. (Sister children's network
Qubo
Qubo ( ; stylized as qubo) was an American television network for children between the ages of 5 and 14. Owned by Ion Media, it consisted of a 24-hour free-to-air television network often mentioned as the "Qubo channel" (available as a digital ...
—which also originally maintained a 24-hour entertainment schedule from its launch—added a five-hour-long overnight block of infomercials, beginning at the same start time as the Ion Life/Plus block, on January 1, 2019.) On September 8, 2020, the network replaced its slate of factual educational programs that fulfilled its educational content requirements with an extension of Ion Television's "Qubo Kids Corner" block on Monday through Wednesday mornings; the addition of the Qubo E/I block was due to commitments that Ion Media had to fulfill after adding eight primary affiliates—Ion-owned
KILM
KILM (channel 64) is a television station licensed to Inglewood, California, United States, broadcasting the Bounce TV network to the Los Angeles area. It is owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company alongside S ...
,
WFPX
WFPX-TV (channel 62) is a television station licensed to Archer Lodge, North Carolina, United States, broadcasting the digital multicast network Bounce TV to the Research Triangle region. It is owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of th ...
,
WDPX-TV
WDPX-TV (channel 58) is a television station licensed to Woburn, Massachusetts, United States, broadcasting the digital multicast network Grit (TV network), Grit to the Boston area. It is owned-and-operated station, owned and operated by the Ion ...
,
WCLJ-TV
WCLJ-TV (channel 42) is a television station licensed to Bloomington, Indiana, United States, serving the Indianapolis area as an affiliate of the digital multicast network Bounce TV. It is owned by Inyo Broadcast Holdings alongside Ion Televisi ...
,
WDLI
WDLI-TV (channel 17) is a television station licensed to Canton, Ohio, United States, serving the Cleveland–Akron area as an affiliate of the digital multicast network Bounce TV. It is owned by Inyo Broadcast Holdings alongside Ion Televisio ...
,
WSFJ
WSFJ-TV (channel 51) is a television station licensed to London, Ohio, United States, broadcasting the digital multicast network Bounce TV to the Columbus area. Owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company, the ...
and
WLWC
WLWC (channel 28) is a television station licensed to New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States, serving the Providence, Rhode Island area as an affiliate of Court TV. Owned by Inyo Broadcast Holdings, the station shares transmitter facilities ...
, and affiliate
WIFS—to its slate through the TBN deals and ancillary affiliation agreements.
On September 24, 2020, the
E. W. Scripps Company
The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is he ...
announced an agreement to buy Ion Media for $2.65 billion. The transaction, which closed on January 7, 2021, saw Ion Television, Ion Plus, Qubo and infomercial service Shop Ion integrated into Scripps'
Katz Broadcasting
Katz Broadcasting, LLC, doing business as Scripps Networks, is an American specialized digital multicasting network media company and a subsidiary of E. W. Scripps Company. The company owns (as of 2022) nine television networks that each carry ...
subsidiary (operator of fellow multicast networks
Court TV
Court TV is an American digital broadcast network and former cable television channel. It was originally launched in 1991 with a focus on crime-themed programs such as true crime documentary series, legal analysis talk shows, and live news cove ...
,
Ion Mystery
Ion Mystery (formerly Escape and Court TV Mystery, stylized as ESCAPE and MYSTERY; formerly branded on-air as Mystery) is an American digital subchannel#Commercial networks, free-to-air television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiar ...
,
Bounce TV
Bounce TV is an American digital multicast television network owned by Katz Broadcasting, a subsidiary of E. W. Scripps Company. Promoted as "the first 24/7 digital multicast broadcast network created to target African Americans", the channel fe ...
,
Laff
Laff (legal name: Laff Media, LLC) is an American digital multicast television network headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and is owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network specializes in comedy programmi ...
and
Grit).
"No Retrans, No Problem for Scripps’ Ion Deal,"
from ''Broadcasting & Cable'', September 25, 2020)
Over-the-air discontinuation, continuation via smart television platforms
On January 14, 2021, Scripps announced that it would discontinue Ion Plus, Qubo, and Shop Ion effective February 28. The spectrum allocated to the networks on the former Ion Media stations will be repurposed to carry the Katz-owned networks starting March 1, with the initial slate of Ion Television O&Os adding those networks following the expiration of Scripps/Katz's existing contracts with other broadcasting companies the day prior, and other stations following suit as contracts with existing affiliates expire throughout 2021 and 2022; in markets where major network affiliates operated by Scripps already carry a Katz-owned network, some will be offloaded to the Ion stations to free up limited spectrum capacity during the ATSC 3.0
ATSC 3.0 is a major version of the ATSC standards for television broadcasting created by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC).
The standards are designed to offer support for newer technologies, including HEVC for video channels of u ...
transition. Several of the Ion Plus full-power stations paired with Ion Television stations were also concurrently sold off to INYO Broadcast Holdings in order to alleviate local ownership conflicts and national cap issues related to Scripps' purchase of Ion Media under the FCC's regulatory station ownership limits. Ion Plus was replaced by selected Katz-owned networks on Ion affiliates (including O&Os spun off to INYO Broadcast Holdings, which obtained affiliations with certain Katz networks as part of a broader agreement with Scripps/Ion) on February 27, and was replaced on Scripps-owned Ion stations post-shutdown on March 1.
Scripps continues to provide a live feed of Ion Plus to interested smart TV
A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features, which allows users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart TVs are a techno ...
providers and their advertiser-supported channel portals, under a separate contract. This includes Vizio
Vizio Inc. (stylized as VIZIO) is an American publicly traded company that designs and sells televisions, sound bars, viewer data, and advertising. The company was founded in 2002 and is based in Irvine, California.Lawton, Christopher, Iwatani K ...
's WatchFree service, and Samsung
The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
TV Plus on that manufacturer's Tizen
Tizen () is a Linux-based mobile operating system backed by the Linux Foundation, mainly developed and used primarily by Samsung Electronics.
The project was originally conceived as an HTML5-based platform for mobile devices to succeed MeeGo. Sa ...
-supported sets, along with streaming services such as Xumo
Xumo ( ) is an American over-the-top internet television service owned by Comcast. Founded in 2011, it offers a free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) and advertising video on demand (AVOD) service that primarily offers a selection of pro ...
, Tubi
Tubi is an American over-the-top content platform and ad-supported streaming service owned by Fox Corporation. The service was launched on April 1, 2014, and is based in Los Angeles, California. In January 2021, Tubi reached 33 million monthly ...
, Freevee
Amazon Freevee is an American ad-supported video-on-demand (VOD) streaming service owned by Amazon, with original and licensed programming.
History
Amazon Freevee launched as a free, ad-supported video channel by the Amazon-owned online data ...
and The Roku Channel
The Roku Channel is an American over-the-top video streaming service owned and operated by Roku, Inc., which launched in September 2017.
History
In September 2017, Roku, Inc. launched a free, ad-supported streaming channel for its digital media ...
, as well as mobile phone/tablet access via an app on the Google Play
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android (operating sys ...
store.
Affiliates
As of November 2015, Ion Plus had current and pending affiliation agreements with 65 television stations encompassing 34 states and the District of Columbia
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
. The network has an estimated national reach of 58.29% of all households in the United States (or 182,130,362 Americans with at least one television set). Like parent network Ion Television, the network's stations almost exclusively consist of network-owned stations. Ion Life's programming is available by default via a national feed that is distributed directly to select cable and satellite providers in markets without a local Ion Television station that carries the network.
Ion Plus did not have any over-the-air stations in several major markets
Market is a term used to describe concepts such as:
* Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand
* Market economy
*Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market
Geography
*Märket, a ...
, most notably Toledo, Ohio
Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according ...
; San Diego, California
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...
; Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...
; Richmond, Virginia
(Thus do we reach the stars)
, image_map =
, mapsize = 250 px
, map_caption = Location within Virginia
, pushpin_map = Virginia#USA
, pushpin_label = Richmond
, pushpin_m ...
; Green Bay, Wisconsin
Green Bay is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The county seat of Brown County, it is at the head of Green Bay (known locally as "the bay of Green Bay"), a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It is above sea lev ...
; and Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
. A key factor in the network's limited national broadcast coverage is the fact that Ion Media Networks does not actively seek over-the-air distribution for the network on the digital subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...
s of other network-affiliated stations (in contrast, its parent network Ion Television – which had similarly limited national coverage following the digital television transition
The digital television transition, also called the digital switchover (DSO), the analogue switch/sign-off (ASO), the digital migration, or the analogue shutdown, is the process in which older analogue television broadcasting technology is conv ...
– has begun subchannel-only affiliation arrangements through agreements with NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations' Telemundo Station Group
Telemundo Station Group is the division of NBCUniversal Owned TV Stations (NBCUniversal), a subsidiary of Comcast that oversees their Telemundo owned-and-operated television stations and the TeleXitos network. The NBC owned-and-operated stations ...
subsidiary and Nexstar Media Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...
during 2014 and 2015), with very few stations that contractually carry the network's programming (with limited exceptions in markets and Anchorage, Alaska
Anchorage () is the largest city in the U.S. state of Alaska by population. With a population of 291,247 in 2020, it contains nearly 40% of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolitan area, which includes Anchorage and the neighboring Ma ...
). As a result, Ion Media Networks owned the vast majority of the stations within Ion Plus's affiliate body.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ion Life
Television channels and stations established in 2007
Ion Television
Defunct television networks in the United States
English-language television stations in the United States
Television channels and stations disestablished in 2021