Warner Bros. Discovery is making cable network TruTV a regular home for sports, adding a weeknight sports block and shifting established franchise Impractical Jokers to TBS this summer.
A mix of live sports, original sports programming and ancillary sports content will start appearing on TruTV next Monday, March 11, under the banner “TNT Sports on TruTV.” The block will start at 6 p.m. ET and run through late night.
The NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, aka March Madness, gets under way the following week. WBD, which shares in March Madness rights with Paramount, often makes use of TruTV as a home for early-round tournament games.
The push toward daily sports programming comes as WBD, Fox and Disney have embarked on a joint sports-focused streaming venture. The JV, scheduled to launch this fall, will bring 14 linear network feeds to subscribers via the internet. Apart from the NCAA tournament, TNT is known for its NBA coverage and TBS broadcasts Major League Baseball.
Impractical Jokers, a cornerstone TruTV property since its premiere in 2011, will move to TBS with a batch of new episodes this summer. During the transitional period, the series will continue to simulcast on both truTV and TBS through early April. Series from the TruTV library, including past seasons of Impractical Jokers, will air on TruTV prior to 6 p.m. each day.
“We are constantly striving to create and deliver the best sports content and experiences to sports fans wherever they are, and this is an exciting opportunity to expand the reach of our premium TNT Sports programming with greater consistency throughout the year,” said Luis Silberwasser, Chairman and CEO, TNT Sports. “By creating a primetime block of sports programming on truTV, in addition to our existing premium live sports on TNT and TBS, we are now able to deliver a more comprehensive sports offering for our fans, while generating additional growth opportunities for our sports division and strategic business and league partners.”
The upcoming programming lineup will include select alternative presentations of live TNT Sports games; simulcasts of games appearing on TNT or TBS; a new 30-minute news and highlight show, TNT Sports Update, airing nightly at 6 p.m.; betting show The Line, airing weeknights at 6:30; NBA-centric show Handles airing in late night; and a House of Highlights show produced weekly as a TruTV exclusive. (WBD’s digital subsidiary Bleacher Report is known for its House of Highlights vertical.)
Also in store for the new sports block are movies and documentaries, including The Inside Story, which looks at TNT’s Inside the NBA studio show; in-season episodes of The Steam Room vodcast featuring Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley, and special editions of Shaqtin’ a Fool, among other originally produced programming; and an upcoming schedule of MotoGP races.
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