Country United States Owner Escape Media, LLC Founder Jonathan Katz Motto Slip Away. | Slogan Slip Away. Parent organization Katz Broadcasting Founded 3 April 2014 Launch date 18 August 2014 | |
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Type Digital broadcast television network Availability Nationwide via OTA digital TV
(85% U.S. coverage) Key people Jonathan Katz
(president/CEO, Katz Broadcasting)
Walter Naarr (SVP of programming) Headquarters Atlanta, Georgia, United States | ||
Escape is an American digital multicast television network that is owned by Katz Broadcasting. The network, which is targeted at women between the ages of 25 and 54 years old, primarily focuses on feature films, but also carries some true crime documentary series.
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The network is available in several media markets via the digital subchannels of broadcast television stations and on the digital tiers of select cable providers through a local affiliate of the network. Although the network mainly competes with digital multicast networks such as This TV, Movies! and GetTV, the network's gender-targeted format is similar to that of cable channels such as Lifetime and Oxygen.
Originally, Katz sold the network to affiliated TV stations via ad split, but by October 2015 had moved to paying carriage fees in exchange for the network ad inventory.1 Escape used direct response advertising as a meter of viewers before switching to Nielsen rating C-3.3
History
Katz Broadcasting announced the formation of Escape and sister network Grit on April 3, 2014, with a formal launch scheduled for that summer. When the network was first announced, Katz Broadcasting entered into an affiliation agreement with Univision Communications, which planned to launch Grit in 22 markets served by a station owned by the group or operated through local marketing agreements with Entravision Communications – giving Grit affiliates in 17 of the 20 largest U.S. television markets (including markets such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas-Fort Worth). The network immediately sought carriage on the digital subchannels of television stations owned by other broadcasting companies. On June 17, 2014, Katz signed group deals to carry Escape on stations owned and/or operated by Raycom Media in six markets.
On August 11, 2014, Katz announced that the two networks would launch simultaneously on August 18. Escape launched at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time on that date, with the 1981 film Body Heat as the network's inaugural broadcast.
Katz estimated, based on direct response advertising business by September 2015, the network has close to 250,000 prime time viewer. At that time, Escape along with its brother network, Grit, were signing up for national ratings from Nielsen.
By May 2016, Escape has acquired rights to American Greed and Bellum Entertainment’s Corrupt Crimes. Escape had partnered in May with Bellum on production of five true-crime shows totaling 400-plus episodes marking the network's entry into original programming.
Programming
Escape mainly features a mix of theatrically released feature films focusing on the crime drama and mystery genres, as well as off-network reality-based crime re-enactment series. Katz Broadcasting president and CEO Jonathan Katz based the demographic-targeted concept of Escape and Grit after Bounce TV, a network Katz co-founded with Martin Luther King III and Andrew Young in 2011 that is targeted at African American audiences; Katz stated Escape and Grit are "the country's first ever male-centric and female-centric broadcast networks," featuring different programming from other classic television multicast networks that Katz referred to as "generic brands with generic names, created by studios to serve the studios."
Movies
Escape's program schedule relies primarily on an extensive library of films through multi-year program licensing agreements with several major film studios, Warner Bros. Pictures (distributed through Warner Bros. Television Distribution), Universal Pictures (through NBCUniversal Television Distribution), Paramount Pictures (through Trifecta Entertainment & Media) and Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Television series
The majority of Escape's schedule consists of off-network reality-based crime re-enactment series. Shortly before the network's launch, on August 1, 2014, Escape acquired the syndication rights to three true crime series – Forensic Files, Snapped and the Dennis Farina run of Unsolved Mysteries – through respective deals with Trifecta Entertainment & Media, NBCUniversal Television Distribution and Cosgrove/Meurer Productions for its initial schedule.
Original shows produced by Bellum Entertainment are:
Affiliates
At introduction in August 2014, Escape had current or pending affiliation agreements with television stations in 33 media markets encompassing 19 states (including stations in 23 of the 50 largest Nielsen markets), covering approximately 50% of the United States. As of January 2017, Escape has affiliates covering over 76% of the US TV market.
On July 17, 2014, Katz announced affiliation deals with the Cox Media Group to carry Escape on 2 stations; as well as a deal with PMCM TV, LLC to carry Escape and Grit in the Philadelphia market, and Citadel Communications for 2 stations. It also expanded its affiliation deal with Univision Communications to add stations in 3 stations to the network's originally announced Univision-owned charter affiliates.
On November 16, 2015, Katz announced new affiliation deals with Media General and Tribune Media adding the network to eight more markets.
On June 15, 2016, Katz announced new affiliation deals with Nexstar Broadcasting Group and Cordillera Communications KVOA