Industry Media | Founder Jonathan Katz | |
Type Private limited liability company Founded February 3, 2014 (2014-02-03) Headquarters Marietta, Georgia, United States Key people Jonathan Katz (president/CEO)
Jeffrey Wolf (chief distribution officer) | ||
Katz Broadcasting, LLC, is an American media company specializing in digital multicasting, owning (as of 2016) three television networks that each carry programming with specified formats targeted at individual demographics. Katz and Bounce Media share staff from the former company's launch, including Jonathan Katz (who serves as president and chief executive officer of Katz, while continuing to serve as chief operating officer) and Jeffrey Wolf (Katz's chief distribution officer and Bounce's executive vice president of network distribution).
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Originally, Katz sold the network to affiliated TV stations via ad split, but by October 2015, had moved to carriage fees in exchange for the network get the ad inventory due to greater inventory with stations adding a third or fourth subchannel.:1 Their networks used direct response advertising as a meter of viewers before switching to Neilsen rating C-3.:3
History
Katz Broadcasting, LLC was founded on February 3, 2014 by Jonathan Katz, who serves as chief operating officer of Bounce TV and formerly served as an executive at the Turner Broadcasting System. The company was announced concurrently with the announced launches of its first two networks, Escape and Grit, which were both launched that April with Univision and UniMás owned-and-operated stations run by Univision Communications serving as its charter station group; both of Katz's initial networks are targeted at individual genders (with Grit aimed at men and Escape aimed at women). Katz and Bounce continued to share executive staff with the hiring announcement of Jim Weiss (a former executive at sports marketing agency CSE) as the former's senior vice president of corporate communications in August.
On January 18, 2015, Katz Broadcasting announced the launch of its third specialty network, Laff, a comedy-focused network that was tapped for an April 15 debut with ABC Owned Television Stations and the E. W. Scripps Company serving as its core charter affiliate groups. On March 24, 2015, Katz signed a multi-network agreement with the Meredith Corporation that would add all three Katz-owned networks to Meredith-owned stations in five markets, boosting Laff's national coverage to 50%, Escape's to 58% and Grit's to 78% of all U.S. television markets. Escape and Grit switched from direct response advertising as a meter of viewers to Neilsen rating C-3 late 2015 with Laff expected to follow suit.:3
On June 15, 2016, Katz Broadcasting signed a multi-network agreement with Nexstar Broadcasting Group and operated affiliated TV station companies that would bring all three Katz-owned networks (as well as Bounce TV) to stations owned and/or operated by Nexstar in 54 markets, jumping national coverage of both Escape and Laff to 85% and Grit's coverage to 93%.