Entertainment Studios Networks is a group of seven high-definition cable networks operated by

Entertainment Studios Entertainment Studios, Inc., also known as Allen Media Group, is an American media and entertainment company based in Los Angeles. Owned and founded in 1993 by businessman Byron Allen, the company was initially involved in the production and d ...

Inc., a company owned by and featuring comedian

Byron Allen Byron Allen Folks (born April 22, 1961) is the founder of the U.S. entertainment company Entertainment Studios which includes The Weather Channel. He is also a television producer, philanthropist, and comedian in his younger years. Notable sh ...

. The seven networks include Cars.TV, Comedy.TV, ES.TV, Justice Central, MyDestination.TV, Pets.TV and Recipe.TV. All the shows appearing on the networks are produced and distributed exclusively by Entertainment Studios, but are also distributed in traditional

broadcast syndication Broadcast syndication is the practice of leasing the right to broadcasting television shows and radio programs to multiple television stations and radio stations, without going through a broadcast network. It is common in the United States where ...

, to some controversy by cable providers who have rejected carriage of the networks under those grounds as providing low customer value when those programs are all available on traditional

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...

s. In addition, Byron Allen in early 2018 acquired

The Weather Channel The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel broadcasts weather forecas ...

, which remained mainly under carriage agreements under its old management, along with its own separate corporate structure, but now comes under the same carriage agreement with ESN and Allen Media, Byron Allen's broadcast stations group.

History

The networks were launched in May 2009 through a deal with Verizon FIOS and have since expanded to several other pay-TV services. The networks are also offered direct-to-consumer through a

Roku Roku ( ) is a brand of hardware digital media players manufactured by American company Roku, Inc. They offer access to streaming media content from online services. The first Roku model, developed in collaboration with Netflix, was introduce ...

Amazon Fire TV Amazon Fire TV (stylized as amazon fireTV) is a line of digital media players and microconsoles developed by Amazon. The devices are small network appliances that deliver digital audio and video content streamed via the Internet to a connecte ...

channel known as "SmartTV.com". On March 22, 2018,

announced its intent to acquire

's television assets from an

NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. NBCUniversal is primari ...

Blackstone Group Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate b ...

partnership. The actual value is undisclosed, but was reported to be around $300 million; the channel's non-television assets, which were separately sold to IBM two years prior, were not included in the sale. Likewise, the

regional sports network In the United States and Canada, a regional sports network (RSN) is a cable television channel (many of which are also distributed on direct broadcast satellite services) that presents sports programming to a local market or geographical region. ...

s Entertainment Studios is purchasing in conjunction with

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, t ...

Bally Sports The Bally Sports Regional Networks are a group of regional sports networks in the United States owned by Diamond Sports Group, a joint-venture company of the Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios. The naming rights to the network we ...

(formerly

Fox Sports Networks Fox Sports Networks (FSN), formerly known as Fox Sports Net, was the collective name for a group of regional sports channels in the United States. Formed in 1996 by News Corporation, the networks were acquired by The Walt Disney Company on Mar ...

), will be operated in a separate venture, Diamond Sports Ventures.

Ratings

As of the end of 2017, only two of the channels in the suite, Justice Central and Comedy.TV, maintained a nightly Nielsen average enough to tabulate a rating, while the others five had such a low sample size, they unable to be rated; the two channels also are regularly among the least rated Nielsen-measured networks in the United States. ESN has since classed the other five networks together as one unit known as "ESN Lifestyle" for ratings purposes to allow Nielsen classification, though this has not been reflected on-air. As of 2019, Comedy.TV was the lowest-rated network measured by Nielsen, with an average of 1,000 primetime viewers. Justice Central had the highest viewership among Allen networks, averaging 11,000 viewers. The remaining five channels have a combined average of 3,000 viewers.

Channels

*Cars.TV - dedicated to notable cars, showcasing the collectors, designers, innovators, and ultimate car enthusiasts. *Comedy.TV - comedians performing live and taped, as well as hosted talk and variety shows; such as ''

Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen ''Comics Unleashed'' is a half-hour comedic talk show produced by the Entertainment Studios production company (formerly CF Entertainment) and hosted by Byron Allen, with John Cramer as announcer and DJ Cobra or sometimes DJ A1 providing music s ...

'' and ''Comedy.tv''. *ES.TV - entertainment news, variety shows, and celebrity profiles. *Justice Central - reruns of Entertainment Studios' court shows ''

America's Court with Judge Ross ''America's Court with Judge Ross'' is an American syndicated court show produced by Entertainment Studios (ES). The program features former Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kevin A. Ross presiding over nontraditional/dramatized small cl ...

'', ''

We the People With Gloria Allred ''We the People'' (originally ''We the People with Gloria Allred'', upcoming ''We the People with Judge Lauren Lake'') is an American dramatized court show that originally ran for 1 season, debuting on September 12, 2011, and airing in first-ru ...

'', and ''

Justice for All with Judge Cristina Pérez ''Justice for All with Judge Cristina Perez'' is an American nontraditional/dramatized court show that debuted in first-run syndication on September 17, 2012. The series, which is created by Byron Allen through his production company, Entertain ...

''. *MyDestination.TV - dedicated to showcasing exotic destinations around the world, and ''Beautiful Homes & Great Estates'' *Pets.TV - dedicated to pets and pet lovers, celebrating the best in show and the people who love them. *Recipe.TV - showcasing chefs, recipes, food and cuisine from around the world.

Carriage lawsuits

On December 3, 2014, a $10 billion racial discrimination lawsuit was filed against

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

U-verse U-verse TV is a DirecTV brand of IPTV service. Launched on June 26, 2006, U-verse included broadband Internet (now AT&T Internet or AT&T Fiber), IP telephone (now AT&T Phone), and IPTV (U-verse TV) services in 48 states.DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. It ...

by the National Association of African American Owned Media (NAAAOM) for allegedly violating the

Civil Rights Act of 1866 The Civil Rights Act of 1866 (, enacted April 9, 1866, reenacted 1870) was the first United States federal law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. It was mainly intended, in the wake of the Amer ...

. NAAAOM is headed by Entertainment Studios Vice-President Mark DeVitre. The lawsuit claimed that Entertainment Studio Networks were denied carriage by the two providers on racial concerns. In December 2015,

and

DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. It ...

(by then part of AT&T) reached a settlement with Entertainment Studios to carry the networks, with Comedy and Justice Central carried on DirecTV, and Comedy, Recipe, ES, MyDestination, Cars and Pets added to U-verse, along with Justice Central's existing carriage. The same type of lawsuit, again for $10 billion, was filed against

Charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the rec ...

on January 28, 2016, which seeks carriage as part of Charter's merger with

Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable, Inc. (TWC) was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, operat ...

and

Bright House Networks Bright House Networks, LLC also simply known as Bright House, was an American telecom company. Prior to its purchase by Charter Communications, it was the tenth-largest multichannel video service provider and the 6th largest cable internet provi ...

into the front-facing

Spectrum A spectrum (plural ''spectra'' or ''spectrums'') is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without gaps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of colors i ...

brand. Charter and

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 ...

(which had a separate $20 billion suit filed against them by Entertainment Studios and NAAOM) filed an appeal to dismiss the lawsuit in the

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts: * District ...

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

grounds, which was dismissed by the 9th Circuit on November 19, 2018, allowing the two suits to go forward to trial. Comcast successfully petitioned the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

for

writ of certiorari In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...

to challenge the Ninth Circuit's decision, which the Court granted in June 2019. In March 2020, the Supreme Court issued a 9-0 unanimous decision agreeing with Comcast that Allen must meet the high bar under the 1866 Civil Rights Act and prove that Comcast would have carried his channel "but for" his race. The court sent the case back to the 9th Circuit of reconsideration. In June 2020, Comcast and Allen settled the lawsuit and came to a broader agreement to carry Allen's broadcast stations and the Weather Channel, along with three of the ESN networks. Charter settled their lawsuit with Allen on February 4, 2021, out-of-court for undisclosed terms. Spectrum systems thus added four ESN networks (Pets, Cars, Recipe, and Justice Central) at the start of May 2021.

References

External links