2109 Court TV

It’s baaaak! Court TV has returned to the air. Sort of.  Zombie television. Want to watch the OJ trial gavel-to-gavel? (Once was once too much.) Miss seeing Vinnie Politan-all-the-time?  He’s back too.  A group called Katz has put this thing together.  

Evidently, they must have bought the file tapes from the previous owner.  They’re advertising a 37-part special on the Simpson trial. But other than Anchor Vinnie, they seem not to have gathered the rest of the galaxy of stars that made the original Court TV a household nuisance. 

Watching it was like watching paint dry, alternating with people wetting down the paint to make sure it never dried.  

The real stars have been flung out of their heavenly positions and have landed in other parts of the universe.

Jane Velez-Mitchell:  Gone with the wind.  Polishing her awards from PETA?  Making the case for women who love women?  Running the JaneUnchaned News Network, whatever that is?

Jack Ford: Still viewable at CBS, sometimes PBS. 

Ashleigh Banfield: Played Katie to Jack Ford’s Bryant on Court TV, then CNN, then Headline News and now… um…

And the biggest of them all, the reprehensible Nancy Grace. She was most recently seen on Oxygen TV, one of those mostly-re-run channels you find at the nosebleed end of the cable/satellite TV dial.

In her day she was a big draw because she was brassy, opinionated, and just the perfect hell-raising, cut off disagreement commentator you love to hate.

About Vinnie:  He saw them sharpening the ax at the original court TV and got out before his neck was officially endangered.  Ch. 11 in Atlanta snapped him up.  And he stayed there until Katz came calling.

Katz is conveniently (for Vinnie) located in Atlanta, the town Ted Turner failed to turn first to Hollywood, then New York and now… well, Atlanta.

A fledgling pay-tv outlet struggles without a big name or two to trumpet.  So possibly wide “clearance,” can be an impossible dream. For example, the two major satellite networks don’t clear it. The Scripps TV Stations do, but there aren’t a lot of them and so the website offers readers an e-z form to fill out and badger your cable or satellite company.

Which you will do.  Which will result in … nothing.

They’re on Hulu, though. That’s at least something.

But they’ll soldier on, at least for a while.  They’ll stick cameras in the courtrooms to witness cases of little consequence and hope against hope for the next OJ, or Jody Arias or Casey Anthony, who also was known to viewers of Nancy Grace as Tot Mom.

In all likelihood, the Jury, you, will self instruct to ignore. 

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Comments? Send ‘em here: wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2019