Nexstar has named ABC News senior executive producer Michael Corn to head up its NewsNation cable news network.

Most recently, Corn had been running Good Morning America, and before that headed up World News Tonight.

Also Read: NewsNation Names Allison Harrison D.C. Correspondent

As president of news, Corn will oversee both day-to-day operations and long-term strategy for the network, formerly WGN American which reaches 75 million TV households, according to Nexstar.

Read Also: News VP Quits Nexstar's NewsNation Amid Bias Concerns

He reports to Nexstar Media president Sean Compton. “I’m extremely impressed with NewsNation and its mission, as well as with the breadth and depth of the experience of the news staff,” said Corn in a statement. “Our ability to tap into a network of over 5,500 journalists and 110 newsrooms is unparalleled in this business."

Aaron Sorkin, Bryan Cranston and Robin Wright will be among the first week’s guests on Banfield, the new talk show on NewsNation, the Nexstar cable network previously called WGN America.

Banfield, hosted by veteran TV journalist Ashleigh Banfield, will premiere March 1 at 10 p.m. ET.

“This show emulates the format of one of my idols, Larry King—it’s the kind of show that has been missing on primetime television for a long time,” said Banfield. “My goal is to listen, not antagonize. There will be no eye-rolling or ‘gotcha’ questions. Five nights a week, I hope to bring viewers a better understanding of high-profile newsmakers and celebrities around the world, whether they agree with them or not. I think we all need a bit more understanding, now more than ever.”

Also Read: Mike Viqueira to Head D.C. Bureau for NewsNation

Other upcoming guests on the show including Keth Olbermann, Mike Rowe, David Zucker and Katie Cole.

Banfield is part of the previously announced plan to expand original news programming on NewsNation. Also starting March 1 are NewsNation Early Edition with Nichole Berlie at 6 p.m. and The Donlon Report at 7 p.m. 

Nexstar-owned cable network WGN America has named Mike Viqueira chief of its new Washington bureau.

Viqueira comes from CBS Evening News with Norah O'Donnell in Washington, where he was lead Washington writer.

Viqueira will over see content for NewsNation, the network's prime time newscast as well as ovesee the bureau's daily operations and all Washington-based news coverage, reporting to Jennifer Lyons, WGN America VP of news.

Before joining CBS, Viqueira was a producer and White House correspondent at NBC News and chief congressional correspondent at MSNBC. Before that he was Washington Bureau Chief for Al Jazeera America. 

Mike Viqueira was named Washington, D.C., bureau chief for Nexstar Media’s WGN America, which is being rebranded as NewsNation and will feature five hours of national news each weekday.

Viqueira was lead Washington writer for the CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell. Before that he spent 15 years with NBC News.

Also Read: NewsNation to be New Name For Nexstar’s WGN America

In his new post, Viqueira will oversee the development and daily operations of NewsNation’s new bureau and lead the network’s Washington-based newsgathering.

Also Read: Sinclair Set to Launch ‘National Desk' Jan. 18

“Mike’s depth of knowledge and long career in our nation’s capital make him the perfect choice to build out and lead our D.C. bureau,” said Jennifer Lyons, WGN America’s VP of News. “Mike has spent years covering Congress and the White House; that experience and history will help NewsNation continue delivering on its mission of reporting without bias.”

Viqueira reports to Lyons.

“This is an important moment in the history of our nation’s democracy, and I’m beyond thrilled for the opportunity to build our bureau and lead our journalists here at NewsNation D.C., as we report on the policies, politics and positions that directly impact people everywhere across the country.”

Viqueira started his career at producing NHK Japan Broadcasting’s U.S. coverage. He also service as senior correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief for Al Jazeera America.

Nexstar Media Group said it will rebrand its WGN America cable channel as NewsNation.

The channel, which has carried three hours of news under the NewsNation banner since last fall, will expand its news programming to five hours on weeknights, beginning March 1.

Nexstar added live news programming to WGN America at a time when syndicated programming on cable networks is losing viewers to streaming. The station owner acquired the cable network -- which had evolved from the former Superstation WGN in 2008 -- when it bought Tribune Broadcasting in 2019 for $7.2 billion.

“Rebranding WGN America as NewsNation underscores the network’s clearly defined mission of delivering fact-based and unbiased news, while making it easier for viewers to find this new informative source for news,” said Sean Compton, Nexstar Inc.’s Networks Division president. “At the same time, expanding our news programming to five hours Monday through Friday will extend the network’s reach and the depth of its news content across more weeknight time periods, delivering viewers more national news and regional stories from across the U.S., as well as coverage of the day’s most important issues.”

The third hour of the current three-hour NewsNation block will become Banfield, hosted by Ashleigh Banfield on March 1. 

Also Read: Court TV's Ashleigh Banfield to do Cable Talker

The remaining two hours of NewsNation becomes NewsNationPrime, airing from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET. It will be anchored by Marni Hughs and Rob Nelson.

Joe Donlon, who had anchored NewsNation, becomes anchor of The Donlon Report, airing weeknights from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. 

“The Donlon Report will give viewers an in-depth look at the news events of the day with the help of our correspondents across the country and interviews with experts who can add insight and perspective,” said Donlon.  “We’ll dive into the biggest stories in news, sports, entertainment and culture while staying true to NewsNation’s mission of delivering objective journalism.”

The new extended news block will start at 6 p.m. ET with NewsNation Early Edition, anchored by Nichole Berlie, who had been weekend anchor for NewsNation.

“I’m excited to be a part of the NewsNation team and thrilled to be part of Early Edition,” said Berlie. “Our mission of delivering fact-based, unbiased news is resonating with viewers, and I’m looking forward to building on NewsNation’s solid start with this expansion.”

Nexstar Media Group said it reached a multi-year agreement with streaming service Vidgo to carry Nexstar’s cable network WGN America.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

WGN America has recently completed deals with a number of virtual MVPDs, including Hulu Plus Live TV, FuboTV and YouTubeTV. Those deals have expanded WGN America’s reach by 8.5 million subscribers.

Also Read:Nexstar’s ‘News Nation’ Ready for Opening Night

“Today’s announcement continues the steady strategic expansion of WGN America,” said Sean Compton, president of the networks division of Nexstar. “We are excited to be adding Vidgo’s customers the network’s reach, and to be bringing NewsNation and Banfield to more viewers who can watch us whenever and wherever they desire.”

Vidgo is a privately held prepaid over-the-top television streaming service with local channels, live sports, news, entertainment, family, and Latino programming. 

Ashleigh Banfield, currently seen on Court TV, will be starting a new 10 p.m. ET news talk show on WGN America starting March 1.

Also Read: Dish, Nexstar End Blackout With New Retrans Agreement

WGN America, owned by Nexstar Media Group, last year launched a three-hour news block called News Nation that relies on reports from Nexstar stations around the country.

Also Read: Nexstar Strikes WGN Carriage Deal with Hulu

The new show, replacing the third hour of News Nation, will be called Banfield. Nexstar said it will feature interviews with news makers, politicians and celebrities and offer coverage of the day’s top news stories.

Also Read: Ashleigh Banfield Joins Court TV as Special Contributor

At Court TV, Banfield hosts a Sunday true crime series called Judgment. The show is expected to continue after the WGN America show launches.

Before Court TV, Banfield hosted shows on A+E and HLN. Earlier in her career she worked for ABC, NBC, MSNBC, TruTV and the original iteration of Court TV.

OWN will produce a January special that gives a behind the scenes look at the drama series Underground, the network said Thursday.

The special, Revisiting Underground, will debut Jan. 5 after OWN’s premiere of the historical series drama, which aired on WGN America for two seasons from 2016-2017. OWN acquired the rights to Underground from Sony Pictures Television earlier this month.

Also Read: Oprah Winfrey Swaps Most of OWN Stake for Discovery Shares

The special, hosted by series executive producer John Legend, will take a behind-the-scenes look at the series, which stars Aldis Hodge and Jurnee Smollett and follows the journey of slaves running for their freedom during the 1850s. 

Underground on OWN will feature a revitalized version of the series, with newly filmed episodic introductions by cast members and never-before-seen footage, according to OWN. Underground co-creators Misha Green and Joe Pokaski along with Legend and Anthony Hemingway served as executive producers of the series.

Nexstar Media Group announced that it has come to terms on a new licensing deal with Hulu that will see the return to the streaming company’s virtual MVPD of 20 ABC affiliates, as well as the addition of cable channel WGN America. 

The outlets had been off Hulu + Live TV since October. The vMVPD had supplanted the affiliates with the ABC network national feed in affected markets. 

Among the markets impacted were in Nashville (WKRN), Hartford (WTNH), Grand Rapids (WOTV), Harrisburg (WHTM), New Orleans (WGNO), and Richmond (WRIC).

With the deal with Disney-controlled Hulu, Nexstar-owned WGN America will add 4 million subscriber homes to its portfolio. Nexstar recently carved out carriage of the channel with YouTube TV and fuboTV, as well. WGN is now distributed to about 75 million pay TV homes. 

“We are very pleased to reach an agreement with one of the country’s premier live TV streaming services and we’re looking forward to making our entertainment content and NewsNation available to 4 million new subscribers throughout the country,” said Sean Compton, president of Nexstar's network division, in a statement.

Nexstar still has 164 of its stations in 115 markets blacked out on Dish Network-owned platforms. 

Nexstar said it has struck a distribution deal with Hulu for Nexstar's cable network, WGN America.

It is the third WGN America distribution deal the company has struck in December, said Nexstar, totaling seven million new subs by January of next year.

The deal also means that Nexstar's ABC affiliates will return to Hulu + Live TV.

The Hulu deal alone adds 4 million new subs to WGN America.

“We are very pleased to reach an agreement with one of the country’s premier live TV streaming services and we’re looking forward to making our entertainment content and NewsNation available to 4 million new subscribers throughout the country,” said Sean Compton, president of Nexstar's network division, in a statement.

Nexstar Media Group said it has reached a deal with fuboTV, which will distribute Nexstar’s WGN America channel on its streaming platform.

Also read: Nexstar’s WGN America Gets YouTube TV Carriage.

WGN America will be carried on fuboTV’s base package beginning in mid January. Nexstar earlier this month, struck a deal to be distributed in January by Google’s vMVPD YouTube TV.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Because of a retransmission carriage dispute, WGN America is currently not being carried by Dish Network. 

“This agreement with fuboTV is another significant step forward in the strategic expansion of WGN America,” said Sean Compton, president of the Networks Division of Nexstar Inc. “We are excited to be adding fuboTV’s customers to the reach of the network, and to be bringing NewsNation to even more viewers at a time when so many people are looking for fact-based, unbiased reporting to help them make sense of rapidly changing events across the nation.”

Also Read: Nexstar’s ‘NewsNation’ Ready for Opening Night

Nexstar launched NewsNation, a national newscast relying on content from its 197 television stations in September.

Nexstar Media Group’s cable channel WGN America expanded its distribution base by signing its first carriage agreement with Google’s YouTube TV.

With the addition of the virtual multichannel video programming distributor’s 3 million subscribers, WGN America will be available in about 78 million households.

YouTube TV will add WGN America on Jan. 19. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Nexstar acquired WGN America when it acquired Tribune Media. WGN America in September launched NewsNation, a three hour nightly newscast built on reports from Nexstar’s 197 television stations. Adding original content was part of Nexstar’s strategy go gain addition carriage for the cable network.

“We are extremely happy to have WGN America joining YouTube TV and we expect to continue the strategic expansion of WGN America to even more viewers in the months ahead,” said Sean Compton, president of the networks division of Nexstar. “We look forward to bringing WGN America’s programming and NewsNation’s fact-based, unbiased reporting to YouTube TV subscribers, including coverage of the Presidential inauguration, which takes place just after our partnership begins.”

Even as it reaches an agreement with YouTube TV, Nexstar and WGN America are bracing for a possible blackout on Dish Network and its Sling streaming service on Wednesday when their current carriage deal expires.

After weeks of rehearsals, Nexstar Media’s new national newscast on WGN America is just about ready to go.

The crew is making last-minute adjustments to some of the graphics and fine-tuning the way they’ll communicate with more than 100 Nexstar stations--to be referred to during the newscast as “NewsNation Stations”--as they prepare for the Sept. 1 debut.

“Technically, everything’s working,” said Sean Compton, executive VP, at WGN America, which was acquired last year when Nexstar bought Tribune Broadcasting. 

That’s a pretty big achievement considering the three-hour nightly newscast is starting from scratch and assembled talent and built its studios during a pandemic.

“It’s like they’re producing a newscast and a Broadway show because there’s so many graphics and so much going on,” added executive producer Jennifer Lyons. During one rehearsal, they covered the California wildfires. “We’ve got a Sacramento live shot and we’ve got a KTLA [Los Angeles] live shot. We’re making sure that we can orchestrate with the stations and put them into our newscast.”

A lot of planning went into the new facility, newsroom and sets. “There’s so much detail that even some of the smallest things could end up being a big deal if you forgot about it,” said Compton. Those details ranged from how many toilets they’ll need to a last-minute realization that a room in the blueprints was needed for makeup.

Because of COVID, the News Nation newsroom, built in the same building as WGN-TV, Chicago, looks a bit empty, with desks unoccupied in order for people to safely social distance. Eventually, in better times, those middle desks will be filled.

The pandemic might have made it difficult to put News Nation together, but on the other hand it will launch at a promising time. The virus has made producing original content difficult and it’s made viewers hungry for news they can trust, especially with an election coming. And at a time when general entertainment networks dependent on re-runs like WGN America are being hurt by cord cutting, adding live programming is something of a lifeline.

Related: WGN America Set Anchor for Primetime ‘News Nation’

Given the way the TV business is moving, a primetime newscast was logical given Nexstar’s assets, Compton said.

“People tell me it was so genius to come up with this. It’s just common sense. You’ve got all these newsrooms, you’ve got satellite trucks, 5,400 reporters and journalists across the country. Choppers everywhere. News operations everywhere. It’s just a no brainer,” he said.

Distributors have reacted well to adding  the newscast to the channel, Compton said. The newscast is also new sponsors to WGN America, particularly in the financial services and pharmaceutical categories.

“We have some very good key advertisers teed up for the launch who are excited by it. They want to make sure we’re not going to be polarizing because there are a lot of advertisers that try to avoid controversy. I think once they see us, they will be even more excited,” said Compton.

On Nexstar’s second-quarter earnings call on Aug. 5, CEO Perry Sook said News Nation has attracted blue-chip advertisers and they are paying rates on a cost-per-thousand viewers basis that are 50% greater than what standard programming on WGN America generates.

Sook added that the launch of News Nation will be promoted by Nexstar’s 196 television stations on a day and date basis. He put the value of that promotion at about $100 million. On top of that, Nexstar will have annualized spending of $20 million on advertising on other cable networks and syndicated radio. Social media will be employed to bring in younger viewers.

A big part of the mission for News Nation is to present both sides of the story. It’s basic journalism but something not seen much in primetime on the cable news channels.

“What Fox CNN and MSNBC do is brilliant. They’re doing a great job but they’re not doing news. They’re doing talk shows," Compton said.

“So much of the cable space is consumed by opinion and talk. But what we're doing isn't that unusual. It's journalism, without opinion,” said anchor Joe Donlon, who moved across the building from WGN’s local news to go national with WGN America.

While other cable news operations are in the right lane or the left lane, WGN America sees opportunities in the middle lane. “We're almost the only ones in it,” said Donlon “People say they want this. The question is will they watch and we're about to find out.”

Really being fair and balanced takes a lot of work.

During rehearsals, stories are being reviewed by rhetoricians to ensure scripts are not one sided. The stories are also being checked by consultants to make sure pictures and graphics are also in the center lane and not shading to the left or right.

Finding those people was tricky and Lyons would end up finding people in journalism departments.

“A lot of it is about diversity and making sure we’re letting everyone’s voices be heard, which is good. And then we have the political left and right,” Lyons said. “Every word counts.”

The News Nation producers also have to make sure that the content that comes in from stations also goes through the new filter, she added. “We've talked about the mission and so everyone is aware. It’s a heavy lift and so we've spent months with this team here working on it.”

Building a new team has advantages over trying to give a new mission to an established group.

Sometimes when people are set in their ways, “that can make news operations stale and stagnant,” said anchor and reporter Rudabeh Shahbazi, who’d been with WFOR-TV, Miami, and recently bought a coat to cope with Chicago winters.

Instead of fitting into a newsroom culture, all of the News Nation staffers are creating that culture as a group.

“I think to have new blood from all over the country and all different backgrounds and all different markets makes it really exciting,” Shahbazi said. “And we can all bring our strengths to contribute to this machinery. It’s going to be a well-oiled machine eventually but I think coming together, which is great,”

Most of the people pulled together for News Nation have worked in multiple markets all over the country.

“Our histories collectively is what will help the show go because Marnie's been in Minneapolis. Salt Lake City and Seattle and I've been in Portland and Tucson and Saint Saint Louis Corpus Christi, Texas and [breaking new anchor Rob Nelson] has been in New Orleans and New Jersey and Philly and New York.” Donlon said.

Those backgrounds help the team spot regionalisms that another national newscasts might not be aware of. Donlon recalls a story about a town in Texas called Westlaco that people were’t sure how to pronounce.

“I've done my time in Corpus Christi. So I knew that,” Donlon said. “Somebody else had a question and Rob knew that one because he was from New Jersey and Marni [Hughes, the co-anchor] knew another one because of where she’s been. I think that's going to help us connect with the audience as well.”

Anchor Marni Hughes said she grew up in Southern Michigan and her husband was from Fort Wayne, Ind. They’d returned to the Midwest when she heard about News Nation.

“I wanted to tell local stories and] represent local communities that are underrepresented on the national scale, Hughes said. “I've worked with just countless talented people and so now our job is to find those stories and to work with our Affiliates and to and to reduce those things for a national audience that has that appeal.”

In some ways three hour every night seems like a long newscast.

“I thought ‘how in the world. Are we going to fill this,’” said Donlon. “After being in these editorial meetings in the morning and you see how much really interesting good content is out there at these Nexstar stations when you cast that net nationwide and pull it back in you suddenly say, how are we going to fit all this in?”

With a premiere nearly at hand, thoughts are turning to how to start the first show.

Compton said there’s been some thought to introducing News Nation, explaining its mission and resources. There are some enterprise stories banked and even talk of a special guest for the first show.

“Nope. It's the news of the day,” said Lyons. “ We're going to put on a newscast, right? So that's what we're about. Of course we have special stories, enterprise stories, but it's the news of the day. It’s not about us.”

It’s not easy staffing a new newscast during a pandemic. 

And yet, Nexstar Media Group’s WGN America has hired the anchors and correspondents for News Nation, the national primetime newscast expected to launch Sept. 1.

News Nation will feature weekday anchors Joe Donlon from Nexstar’s WGN-TV, Chicago, and Marni Hughes, from WCPQ-TV, Seattle, along with breaking news anchor Rob Nelson, most recently with WABC-TV, New York. They’ll be joined by meteorologist Albert Ramon, from WVUE-TV, Austin, Texas

The weekend anchors are Rudabeh Shahbazi of WFOR-TV, Miami, and Nichole Berlie from WCVB-TV, Boston, with breaking news anchor Aaron Nolan from KARK-TV, LIttle Rock, Ark., and meteorologist Gerard Jebaily from KSHB-TV.

The newscast also hired regional correspondents Tom Negovan. who will be in New York after 15 years with WGN in Chicago; Nancy Loo, Los Angeles Bureau, also from WGN; Markie Martin, Dallas Bureau from KOCO-TV, Oklahoma City; and Brian Entin in the Miami Bureau from WSVN-TV Miami.

John Potratz, who has been with WABC-TV, New York; Fox News and WFLD-TV, Chicago, will be the executive producer.

While several of the newscasters are from WGN and other Nexstar stations, “we cast our net far and wide,” said Jennifer Lyons, who spent many years at WGN before being named VP of News for WGN America.

“From the very beginning we decided that we wanted good, solid, local journalists who are well respected in their markets who would be able to go to the national level,” Lyons said.

Assembling the team during a pandemic was a bit of a challenge. Hughes was hired before the coronavirus kept people apart. For the rest, it was a bit like speed dating, Lyons said.

“Usually you bring the anchor in, you take them to dinner, you put them on the set with the person you’re going to seat them with. We could’t do any of that,” she said.

On the other hand in some ways, with Zoom calls you got to see a bit of the candidates’ personalities and priorities by watching them from their homes. “You did get a window into people's lives,” Lyons said. “It was a unique way of hiring people, but in the end we got so comfortable with the way we were doing it and we developed a good feel for people over video calls.”

Lyons had plenty of people to pick from. She reviewed between 200 and 300 reels from on-air talent and had more than a thousand candidates for behind the scenes jobs. The work was helped by the fact that so many stations stream their local newscasts, enabling Lyons to see their body of work, not just edited highlights.

“I’m pretty impressed with the team that we have pulled together. Until this week they’ve never been to the stations and they are coming to work on their project that they all believe deeply in,” Lyons said.

News Nation will air daily from 8 p.m. ET to 11 p.m. ET. It plans to draw on Nexstar’s 5,400 journalists in 110 local newsrooms. WGN America, the cable network Nexstar got when it bought Tribune Media, reaches 75 million TV households. 

WGN America add launch two new original detective-themed shows to its programming lineup, according to network officials.

Detective comedy Carter will debut Aug. 7, while drama series Gone will debut in early 2019, according to network officials. The 10-episode Carter, which stars Jerry O’Connell (Billions), Sydney Poitier Heartsong (Chicago P.D.) and Kristian Bruun (Orphan Black), revolves around a down and out actor who taps into his acting experience as a detective to become a real-life detective in his hometown along with his two best friends.

Gone, which stars Chris Noth (Sex and the City, Law & Order) Leven Ramblin (The Hunger Games) and Danny Pino (CSI: Miami), follows a survivor of a highly publicized child-abduction case who is recruited by the FBI agent who rescued her to join a special task force he created dedicated to solving abductions and missing persons cases.

“Carter and Gone are very exciting additions to WGN America’s superb Prime Crime lineup,” said Gavin Harvey, president of WGN America in a statement. “Both shows bring stellar casts and appealing stories to powerfully complement the network’s multi-faceted mix of hit procedurals, dramas and comedies.”

WGN America’s crime drama 100 Code starts May 29, and tells the story of a serial killer who left his mark in New York and Stockholm, and the police — Dominic Monaghan’s Tommy Conley character in New York and Michael Nyqvist’s Mikael Eklund in Stockholm — trying to track him down.

It comes from producer Bobby Moresco, who said the genesis came from the book Merrick — by Irish author Ken Bruen — being sent to him, to see if he could make a film out of it. Moresco, whose film credits include Crash and Million Dollar Baby, did not see a movie. But he was intrigued by the book’s main character, and worked out a deal to set him in a series. That puts Conley, a no-nonsense NYPD detective, at the center of 100 Code.

Cast and crew were shocked when Nyqvist died of lung cancer last June. “Heartbreaking,” is how Moresco described it. “He was strong as an ox. And I want to tell you, he was the nicest man in the world — a gentleman, a family man.”

The 100 Code master plan only had Nyqvist in the first season, with Conley heading back to New York in search of the killer.

What makes 100 Code stand out amidst this packed landscape of really good TV? “Everything’s been done,” Moresco acknowledged. “What makes any show different is what the writers and actors bring to it.”

He said the series delves into anonymity, and how the internet “allows anyone to say anything” with impunity. The web plays a key role in 100 Code’s murders. “Technology scares the hell out of me,” Moresco said.

WGN America has been a great partner, he added. “Any time a network loves your show, you love them.”

Also on May 29, it’s season three of Animal Kingdom on TNT (pictured). Ellen Barkin’s Smurf is in jail and J, played by Finn Cole, is in charge. “The boys really start to test J’s mettle, to see if he’s got what it takes to not only be in charge, but to be a Cody,” said David Rodriguez, co-executive producer and director.

Denis Leary has joined the cast, playing Billy, a “man-of-the-world junkie,” said Rodriguez, that Smurf kicked out years ago, but remains connected to the family because he is Deran Cody’s dad.

He and Barkin face off when Smurf gets out of jail. “It’s fun to watch these two veterans grace the screen, and size each other up,” Rodriguez said.

He promised big things for the new season. The family “gets bolder and the crimes get bigger,” Rodriguez said. “We do some really, really crazy s--t this season.”

WGN America has renewed crime drama Pure well ahead of the show’s early 2019 premiere, said network officials.

The series, which stars Ryan Robbins and Alex Paxton-Beesley, follows the journey of a newly elected Mennonite pastor whose efforts to rid his community of the scourge of drugs and its ties to ruthless Mexican cocaine cartels thrusts his family into a world of violence, greed and betrayal, the network said. 

Related: WGN America Secures Rights to Three Scripted Series

The first season of Pure will debut in early 2019, and the second season is scheduled to begin production in Nova Scotia later this spring. Pure is produced by Two East Productions and Cineflix, and executive produced by Michael Amo (The Listener), Ken Girotti (Orphan Black, Vikings), Brett Burlock, Peter Emerson and David MacLeod (Call Me Fitz).

“Pure is a stand-out scripted drama series with powerful characters and intense conflict in a very unique world,” said Gavin Harvey, president of WGN America in a statement. “We are fully committed to this riveting series and knew we wanted to extend the story before the first episode even hits our air."

WGN America continued to build its lineup of scripted series with the acquisition of three crime-themed series set to premiere in 2018.

The three series include Shoot The Messenger, a crime thriller starring Elyse Levesque (Orphan Black) and centering on the complex relationships between crime reporters and the police; Pure, which chronicles a secretive subculture through the eyes of a conflicted, good-hearted man trying to protect his family and preserve his faith; and 100 Code, which stars Dominic Monaghan (Lost, Lord of the Rings Trilogy) and the late Michael Nyqvist (John Wick, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) as cops from different parts of the world teaming up to investigate the deaths of several women in New York and Stockholm.

The acquisitions come on the heels of the network’s recent pickup of the Anna Pacquin-led drama series Bellevue.The series acquisitions also continue WGN America's move to build its scripted lineup since the cancellation of Undergroundand Outsiders earlier this year as a result of plans to reallocate resources away from the scripted series business as part of Sinclair Broadcast Group’s pending merger with WGN America parent Tribune Media.

“WGN America continues to deliver one of the best crime lineups in television,” said Gavin Harvey, president, WGN America in a statement. “These four new original series build upon our strong slate of compelling programming that offers nonstop mystery, thrills and suspense for the growing number of fans of the crime genre.”

WGN America has pulled the plug on its sophomore drama series Outsiders, the network confirmed Friday.

The series, which follows a family clan defending their mountain land and their way of life from the town below, is currently in its second season. While the show has done well from a ratings perspective, Peter Kern, interim president and CEO of WGN parent Tribune Media, said in a statement that the company will be “reallocating our resources to a more diverse programming strategy.”

The network has been on ratings roll, posting this past March its best primetime monthly viewing audience in network history -- led by Outsiders and sophomore series Underground.

The series finale of Outsiders will air on April 25.

Kern’s complete statement is as follows:

“After three years of investing in marquee, brand-defining dramas, WGN America has successfully expanded its audience, its reach, and its presence in the minds of viewers.  In our next phase, we intend to expand our original and unique content to continue growing our relevance and appeal to the widest possible audience.  To achieve this, we will be reallocating our resources to a more diverse programming strategy and to new structures, enabling us to expand both the quantity and breadth of content aired by WGN America.  This move is designed to deliver even more value to our advertising and distribution partners.  To free up the resources to reach this goal, we will unfortunately not be renewing ‘Outsiders.’  We are grateful to our production partners at Sony Pictures Television and the terrifically talented people who made the show possible.”

On Jan. 8, actor and director Donald Glover was onstage at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles accepting the best comedy series Golden Globe Award for FX’s freshman series Atlanta, for which he was a first-time executive producer.

Glover, who would also win the Globe for best actor in a comedy series, thanked the “the black folks” in Atlanta for being “amazing people.”

What’s been amazing for the television industry is the infusion of young, African- American executive producers and creators like Glover who have created popular scripted programming with diverse images and storylines that, until just a few years ago, had been rarely seen on the small screen.

Whether its Selma producer Ava DuVernay examining the complex lives of estranged Louisiana siblings in OWN’s Queen Sugar, rapper 50 Cent and Courtney Kemp Agboh exploring the double life of a club owner who’s also a drug kingpin in Starz’s drama series Power, or Internet sensation Issa Rae keeping it real about the lives of single black women in HBO’s freshman comedy series Insecure, African-American creators and producers are stepping up to the plate and delivering quality, unfiltered programming with broad appeal to a cross section of viewers.

PART OF ‘GOLDEN’ WAVE

More newbie African-American TV creators and producers are set to make their debut in 2017, as an unprecedented 500 scripted series are expected to reach TV scereens this year, according to a recent FX study. Showtime has tapped actress Lena Waithe (Netflix’s Masters of None) to helm its upcoming drama series Chi, while several high-profile movie producers will move to the small screen with scripted projects, including Spike Lee (Netflix’s She’s Gotta Have It) and John Singleton (FX’s Snowfall).

Singleton, an Oscar-nominated director for 1991’s Boyz n the Hood, said television is now providing more opportunities to develop projects targeted to diverse viewers. Singleton, who earned an Emmy Award nomination for his direction of an episdode of FX’s The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, will also produce Rebel, a police drama series for BET set to debut in March.

“With TV, it’s like you’re making a movie every week,” Singleton said.

Black History Month Viewing Guides:What to Watch | Interstitals

As the definition of what constitutes TV widens, African-American-helmed scripted series are making their mark in the current environment of high-quality programming.

“There’s been talk about the golden age of television for a while now, and because there are so many ways to get your content out there it opens the door for a lot more voices to be heard instead of when there were just three or six gatekeepers controlling everything people see,” said music superstar John Legend, an executive producer of WGN America’s sophomore drama series Underground, which chronicles the escape of antebellum-era Southern slaves via the Underground Railroad.

Legend added, “It has been great for diversity on television.”

Related > MCN Original Video: John Legend Discusses 'Underground' Season 2

Still, the question remains whether the influx of African-American showrunners and producers will be a passing trend or a key feature of television’s future. Even as African-American-produced, directed and created projects on cable networks proliferate across cable networks and streaming services, minority producers remain rare behind the camera.

Minority show creators in general represented just 7.8% of cable scripted shows during the 2013-14 season, according to the UCLA 2016 Hollywood Diversity Report. While those numbers will undoubtedly climb over the next few years as post-2014 shows like ABC’s Black-ish and Starz’s Power are factored in, Darnell Hunt, director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, said at September’s NAMIC Conference that the representation numbers will still remain below the overall U.S. minority population.

The history of the entertainment industry is littered with periods when movies and TV shows featuring African-American culture looked to have broken into the mainstream, only to nearly vanish within a few years, Insecure showrunner Prentice Penny said.

In particular, he pointed to what was initially thought of as the “Golden Age” of diversity in movies during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when films such as Menace II Society, She’s Gotta Have It and Boyz n the Hood seemed ready to open doors to more films directed and produced by African-Americans. But in the 2000s, few movies from mainstream studios were being helmed by African-American writers, directors and producers.

“The truth is I have no idea,” Penny said when asked whether the current trend of African-American produced content will be long-lasting. “There are always those moments where they make all of these projects and then, 10 years later, there’s nothing. I hope this is [sustainable] and that lots of voices can get heard.”

Certainly, the critical and audience appeal for these shows bodes well for a potentially sustained future. FX’s Atlanta, which follows the lives of cousins trying to make it big in the city’s rap scene, drew 3 million viewers in its Sept. 6 premiere, the most for an FX series in five years. That was followed by a slew of industry accolades, including a Critics’ Choice Award and two Golden Globe Awards for Glover, both as an actor and producer of the series.

Last month, FX rewarded Glover with an exclusive television production deal that includes a second season of Atlanta, set to return in 2018 after Glover finishes his work on the next Star Wars film.

“We’re going to try to get that show back as soon as we can because there’s a great audience that wants that show,” FX president Eric Schrier said during the network’s Television Critics Association tour press event last month.

HBO’s Insecure, which drew 1.1 million viewers in its Oct. 9 premiere, has also been renewed for a second season. Penny — who will produce and star in truTV’s reality series Upscale With Prentice Penny, set to debut in March — said he was initially surprised at the incredibly positive response to the show.

“There’s no formula … you have no idea what people will respond to,” he said. “I feel blessed that people responded to it. You can’t control what the viewing public decides to watch, so you just have to do the best you can.”

He also said that the expansion of distribution outlets via online streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and YouTube will continue to create opportunities for diverse images and stories to be produced.

Added Underground’s Legend: “The landscape was much different then because there are way more distribution channels now — not just cable, satellite or premium channels but so many other places, like Netflix and Hulu, where people can view content. As content creators, its gives us more latitude to populate these different channels with interesting and diverse content.

“It’s made TV more diverse than film because there are so many different opportunities for audiences to get what they’re looking for on television, which means a diverse range of viewpoints and voice can be seen and heard,” Legend added.

Beyond selected hit shows, networks are well aware that African- American viewers are an important audience. African-Americans continue to consume more video than any other group, thereby increasing the viability of content that appeals directly to those viewers. African-Americans average more than 42 hours of live TV viewing during the third quarter of 2016, according to Nielsen’s Total Audience Report, well above the U.S. average of 29 hours, Hispanics (22 hours) and Asian-Americans (14 hours).

KEY TO KEEPING AUDIENCES

Also, as the overall U.S. population continues to diversify, the need for new, unique stories told from a different point of view will force linear network distributors to continue to foster the development of content created by producers and creators of color — otherwise, audiences will migrate to the web, Penny said.

“I think that in the digital space people can just make their own content and put it out there for people to connect to right away,” Penny said. “It changes how we get content to the marketplace, so it definitely opens the door for literally anybody of any color or nationality that has something to say to put it out and get a response right away.”

FX Networks president John Landgraf said 52% of FX’s show directors in 2017 will not be white men, in an effort to better reflect the diversity of the network’s audience.

“We’re going to keep going until everything about our channel and every aspect of our channel is fair and better reflects the diversity of the population of the country we live in, and is not as skewed as the whole industry has been towards white heterosexual males,” Landgraf said at the last month’s Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour.

Added Underground executive producer Misha Green: “I think the diversification of stories that are being told right now will continue because there are more outlets. I think more content is needed, and the gatekeepers who wanted to keep the gate closed are now saying we need shows. I think the increase of content has helped more diverse voices come through, but more still need to come through. I can’t wait to see and hear those voices.”

David Diederich has been promoted to senior vice president, national ad sales at WGN America, from VP, ad sales and brand partnerships, Western region.

He will oversee national ad sales, based in Los Angeles. He will report to David Rotem, executive VP, ad sales, for WGN America.

“David is a talented leader within the ad sales and marketing organization and we are fortunate to have his vision and creativity as we continue to build something very special at WGN America,” Rotem said. “His role has grown in concert with the ascension of our network and we thrilled that he will continue to help lead this team.”

Tribune Media’s WGN America is in 80 million homes and airs such original series as Outsiders, Underground and Salem.

Before joining Tribune, Diederich was local sales manager at KCBS-TV Los Angeles.

For independent and niche-targeted cable networks, it’s tough to stand out from peak television’s burgeoning crowd. Such programmers are counting on this week’s cable portion of the nearly three-week Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour to put themselves in the spotlight.

Durning the two-day cable schedule (Jan. 13-14), more than 30 cable networks and streaming services will present their new and current scripted and reality shows to the more than 200 TCA member writers gathered in Pasadena, Calif. The cable sessions are facilitated by the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing.

Get complete coverage of the 2017 Winter Press Tour.

The Winter TCA, which officially launched last Thursday (Jan. 5) with presentations from the broadcast networks, generated headlines this past November when NBC, ABC and CBS decided to eliminate the tour’s traditional executive panels. Those sessions allow reporters to ask executives about industry trends and upcoming show developments.

Premium programmer Starz, as well as streaming services Amazon and Netflix, decided to sit out the winter tour, leading some industry observers to question the event’s continued news value.

But Reelz, WGN America and other small players set to present this week say TCA is an invaluable forum to get the word out on their upcoming projects.

“TCA is critical because an independent network doesn’t have the reach and clout that the big conglomerates have for their broadcast and cable networks to speak to media of all shapes and sizes,” Reelz CEO Stan Hubbard said. The network will look to promote its upcoming miniseries The Kennedys — After Camelot, starring Katie Holmes and Matthew Perry.

“TCA provides to an opportunity for an independent network like Reelz to really put our best foot forward in a forum that would otherwise be difficult for us to duplicate,” he said.

The tour gives WGN America, which will promote its drama series Underground and Outsiders at TCA, a means to reach out to entertainment media alongside larger network and streaming service competitors.

“In a world of 400-plus scripted shows, not to mention the competition of all other forms of entertainment, TCA is an opportunity to take an audience that comprises the majority of the entertainment press and to capture their attention and imagination,” WGN America president and general manager Matt Cherniss said. “If your show and network can intrigue in an environment in which hundreds of shows, compressed in a few weeks, are attempting to set themselves apart from the crowd, then it’s a strong sign that the show can do the same for the audience as well.”

Even though it’s not scheduled to present a particular show, El Rey Network president and general manager Daniel Tibbets said the ability to talk to TV critics about the network’s development and future plans in an executive forum is important for the emerging network.

“TCA offers a great opportunity for me to have an actual conversation with critics from all over the country about our strategy, which is unique in this ever-shifting media landscape,” Tibbets said.

Even with opportunities to promote shows on digital platforms and through social media, Hubbard said there’s no substitute for talking and promoting television shows through forums that are TV-oriented.

“At the end of the day TV is TV,” Hubbard, who is also an investor in independent arts network Ovation TV, said. “YouTube is not TV, and TV is not YouTube.

“People still watch a lot of TV shows by sitting down and viewing it on a television set,” he said. “For a network like ours, it’s still about people watching television and that’s what advertisers still pay for, and that’s why TCA is so critical for us.”

Having a big brother can be a very good thing for an independent cable network.

The proof is in the numbers — all of the independents that showed the biggest gains in carriage over the past six months have been in some way connected to a much larger content provider or distributor, like ESPN, Comcast or Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Among indie networks, Sinclair’s Tennis Channel had the biggest gain in subscribers between 2015 and 2016, according to SNL Kagan, adding 14.1 million customers. In second place was BabyFirst TV, with an increase of 10.2 million customers.

Rounding out the Kagan list is Boomerang (7.2 milion), FM (7.2 million) and beIN Sports (6.9 million). BabyFirst is one of the minority-controlled networks launched by Comcast as part of the conditions surrounding the FCC approval of its purchase of NBC Universal. Boomerang is owned by Turner Broadcasting (Time Warner Inc.), FM is part of Fuse Media — which includes cable network Fuse and is owned in part by MSG Networks — and beIN Sports is part of beIN Media Group, which operates 34 channels in 33 countries.

The big brother trend was prevalent between 2014 and 2015 as well, according to Kagan, when SEC Network (launched by ESPN) added 38.8 million homes. That year BabyFirst came in second again, with 10.2 million additions. It was followed by Univision Deportes (part of Spanish-language broadcaster Univision Communications) with 8.5 million, Comcast-launched minority channel Aspire (owned in part by NBA legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson) and Fusion (owned by Univision Communications), each with 8.5 million additional homes.

‘A LITTLE BIT OF MUSCLE’

“Sinclair has a little bit of muscle,” Telsey Advisory Group media analyst Tom Eagan said regarding independent networks hooking up with larger companies. “Tennis Channel had very little leverage.”

Tennis Channel was available in about 37 million homes in February, one month before it closed its deal to be purchased by Sinclair for $350 million. Five months later Tennis Channel said, on the eve of its coverage of the U.S. Open tennis tournament, it is available in 47 million homes and is on a path to grow that to 60 million by mid-2017.

Fueling that growth is its relationship with Sinclair, which has been one of the more aggressive broadcasters regarding retransmission-consent negotiations with distributors. With Sinclair’s added heft — it owns, operates or provides services to 173 stations in 81 markets — Tennis Channel has reached carriage deals with several additional distributors, including Charter Communications, Dish Network, Suddenlink Communications, Cable One and Frontier Communications.

Last month, on a conference call to discuss quarterly results, Sinclair executive vice president and chief operating officer David Amy said the Charter deal alone — which wasn’t expected to kick in until mid-August — would add about 1 million homes to Tennis Channel’s rolls.

Tennis Channel is carried on the expanded basic or digital basic packages on Bright House, Charter, Dish Network, Frontier, Suddenlink and Cable One, with similar rollouts planned in the months ahead for AT&T U-verse, Buckeye, Comcast, DirecTV, Mediacom Communications, Cincinnati Bell and WideOpenWest.

Other broadcasters have turned to creating their own pay TV channels to boost revenue and make their overthe- air content more compelling. Tribune Media converted former superstation WGN into WGN America in 2008 and began collecting cable-carriage fees for it in 2014, and Sinclair launched American Sports Network in 2014 and sci-fi network Comet TV in 2015.

Having that extra content doesn’t always translate into more carriage and heftier fees. Tribune found that out on June 13, when Dish Network declined to renew its Tribune retransmission-consent agreement covering 42 Tribune stations in 33 markets and including WGN America. That dispute was ongoing at press time. (Note: Dish and Tribune Media resolved their dispute and Tribune stations and WGN America were restored to Dish on Sept. 3.)

This article was updated on Sept. 8 to correct factual errors concerning the ownership of the Boomerang channel, the conversion of WGN into WGN America and a reference to the Ring of Honor wrestling program.

Hulu has acquired the sixth and final season of Sony Pictures Television’s Community, giving it exclusive streaming rights to all six seasons, the subscription video-on-demand service said Monday (Aug. 15).

Hulu also expanded its deals for Sony’s Underground, Outsiders and Rescue Me. Underground and Outsiders air on Tribune-owned cable network WGN America, while Rescue Me aired on FX from 2004-11.

Earlier this year, Hulu and Sony announced a library deal, adding all episodes of Happy Endings, The Shield, Party of Five, Dawson’s Creek and Damages to the service, as well as several movies, including Jerry Maguire and Midnight in Paris.

Cult comedy hit Community starred Joel McHale as Jeff Winger, a lawyer who had to return to community college because he’d been faking his credentials for years.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

Get complete coverage of the 2016 TCA Summer Tour.

Beverly Hills, Calif.—Eight panelists affiliated with shows on El Rey, Starz, TV One and WGN America tore into the multifaceted issues of TV diversity during a vibrant, insight-packed panel at the TCA summer press tour.

El Rey founder and chairman Robert Rodriguez delivered a brief introduction to the session. “Cable has made great strides,” he said. “There’s never been a more important time to build cultural understanding of people and working together.”

Panelists spent ample time talking about the positives — more shows with diverse casts on air, multiplying outlets, more people of color involved behind the scenes — but also brought to light the ongoing struggle to reflect America in full.

“The way the system is set up, in order to get a job or be able to vote on awards, it’s all just old practices that don’t suit us at all,” said Victoria Mahoney, a director with credits on feature films as well as TV series like Starz’s Survivor’s Remorse and OWN’s Queen Sugar.

“The old guard’s got to let go of their grip a little bit because that’s not the way the world looks,” said Jurnee Smollett-Bell, who stars on WGN America’s Underground. “Storytellers have a right to express what’s inside of them … and consumers and viewers have a right to see themselves.”

Mahoney noted that she is among the 4% of overall directors who are women of color, according to recent guild surveys. “I’ve never been in the bottom 4% of anything in my life,” she quipped.

D’Angela Proctor, senior vice president of original programming and production for TV One, said the executive suite is another area with a lot of room for improvement.

“We have to be at the table at every single level” for truly inclusive programming to permeate the TV business, she said.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

The one-month anniversary of the retransmission-consent dispute between Tribune Media and Dish Network passed with little fanfare last week. And though both sides claim they are still negotiating toward a settlement, some analysts believe that the end to the spat will be more a question of endurance than of compromise.

About 42 Tribune stations in 33 markets went dark to about 5 million of the satellite-TV provider’s customers on June 12, after the parties couldn’t reach a retransmission-consent agreement.

Dish has claimed that Tribune is asking for more than double the old rate for its stations and cable network WGN America, while Tribune has countered that its requested rates are in line with what comparable distributors have already paid and reflect the value of its content.

AT LOGGERHEADS

In an interview last week, Dish senior vice president and deputy general counsel Jeff Blum said the satellite company has been distributing free over-the-air antennas to Dish customers in the affected areas. Dish has also proposed several extension scenarios that would put the stations back on the air during talks and, once a deal was reached, the terms would be retroactive, Blum said.

Tribune has rejected those offers as self-serving for Dish, counterin with a longer extension proposal, which the satellite company rebuffed.

Adding to the acrimony is that broadcasters are beginning to buy pay TV networks — Sinclair Broadcast Group held up its retrans negotiations with Dish last year by trying to secure carriage for a cable channel it didn’t yet own, which turned out to be Tennis Channel — but managed to eventually work out a deal.

Tribune only owns one pay TV channel, WGN America, which was originally a superstation feed of WGN-TV in Chicago before it converted to a cable network in 2014. The network’s fees are low, though. Last year, SNL Kagan estimated WGN America attracted 8 cents per subscriber per month. Retrans fees are much higher, usually in the range of $1 to $2 per subscriber, per month.

PAST BATTLES

Tribune has had some retrans scuffles in the past. It went dark to DirecTV customers in 2012 for about four days and was blacked out to Cablevision Systems customers in the New York area in 2012 for nearly two months.

That willingness to wait it out until the other guy blinks may be a key component of the negotiations, Telsey Advisory Group media analyst Tom Eagan said.

Tribune said it is still in contact with Dish and hopes a deal can be reached, but it isn’t ready to blink just yet. The broadcaster has balked at Dish’s offer of baseball- style arbitration — it says that carriage deals are too complicated and nuanced for that type of settlement.

Eagan sees Dish with a slight edge in talks for two reasons: It isn’t as concerned with subscriber losses as other pay TV operators, and its lack of a broadband service could prevent Tribune from blocking out online access to programming for Dish subscribers.

“Management, and to a degree the Street, doesn’t care so much about subscriber growth,” Eagan said in an interview. “It isn’t that big a driver of the stock.”

Eagan said he sees Dish’s willingness to sacrifice subscriber growth for a more favorable rate as endemic to its overall strategy. It isn’t just negotiating for this deal, it is negotiating for future deals, too.

“I don’t know what broadcast-station group renewals come up after this, but they [Dish] are trying to draw a line in the sand,” Eagan said.

RISKY STRATEGY

But pay TV subscribers are fickle. In 2013, Time Warner Cable dug in its heels during a summer dispute with CBS, a period thought to be ripe for a blackout — there are no major sporting events, reruns rule the broadcast airwaves and most people spend more time off the couch. A month later — after Time Warner Cable had lost 300,000 basic-video customers, the worst quarterly subscriber loss in its history — CBS had its deal at terms close to what it had originally asked for.

No one is expecting a similar fate for Dish in this go-round. Eagan said times are different, the markets are smaller and there were fewer over-the-top alternatives in 2013. Tribune stations offer news, sports and weather information via individual station apps and websites, and viewers can access broadcast-network programming streamed online through their respective websites and apps.

“While that poses a risk for the operator in general because they have substitutes, but it also makes it easier for them [subscribers] to not leave the operator if they suddenly lose a programmer or a channel,” Eagan said.

WGN America has launched a new mobile app supporting its Underground-Railroad drama series Underground. Features in the app -- launched on the Apple and Android platforms -- include behind-scenes video, character and cast information, links to watch full episodes (if verified) on the show's home page and a channel finder for people trying to locate the Tribune Media-owned network on their TV lineups. The series, revolving around the "Macon 7" group of African American slaves who escape a Georgia plantation seeking freedom north of the Ohio River in 1857, is midway into a 10-episode first season. The sixth episode, "Troubled Waters," airs tonight at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

READ MORE: Bringing Underground to the surface: an interview with executive producer John Legend.

WGN America calls Underground the No. 1 social program on cable on Wednesday nights, and the app contains sheareable content. It is averaging 3.1 million viewers on a live plus seven day viewing basis, according to the network.

Cable networks will look to build on the momentum created for the genre by recent projects including FX’s American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson with limited series and specials of their own pulled from the pages of history.

HBO will tackle the 1990s controversy surrounding Anita Hill’s sex-discrimination charges levied during the 1991 Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with the Saturday (April 16) premiere of original move Confirmation. It will also dig into President Lyndon B. Johnson’s first year in office with the May 21 telefilm All the Way.

On the dramatic-series side, Sundance TV will examine the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland on centenary Sunday, April 24, with the limited series Rebellion.

And A&E on Memorial Day (May 30) will premiere the four-episode remake of 1970’s slavery-themed miniseries Roots.

The projects follow the recent ratings success of high-profile, history-themed projects. FX’s 10-part series American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson drew 3.9 million viewers (per Nielsen live-plus-same-day ratings) for its finale April 5 after generating a network-record 5.1 million viewers (also on a live-plus-same-day basis) for the Feb. 2 series premiere.

The retelling of the infamous 1995 Simpson murder trial also generated significant press coverage and social-media buzz that helped build awareness and ratings.

WGN America set a network ratings record with the March 4 premiere of original drama series Underground — the story of slaves escaping bondage along the 19th century Underground Railroad — drawing 1.4 million viewers.

Network executives said the success of The People v. O.J Simpson and Underground are helping to build momentum for a genre that appeals both to older viewers and hard-to-reach younger watchers.

“The appeal of television it its ability to transport you into a story, and to be able to do that across time and go to early 20th century Ireland, or even just back to the 1990s to the O.J Simpson trial, is almost like time-traveling and immersing yourself in that time and place,” said Jan Diedrichsen, executive director of SundanceTV. “That has incredible appeal to viewers of all ages.”

Rebellion, which dramatizes Ireland’s fight for independence through the eyes of three women and their families, is a departure from the network’s mostly fiction-based scripted series. But Diedrichsen said the series fits the SundanceTV brand because it tells a strong and compelling story through well-developed, engaging and relatable characters.

Its historical backdrop is an added benefit for viewers, Diedrichsen said. “Viewers know the ending to the story — the Irish gained their independence — but you’re watching this story and experiencing history differently than reading about it. That allows you to connect and identify with the characters, because you know more than the characters know.”

History, which has scored in the past with shows such as Texas Rising, Hatfields & McCoys and The Bible, will look to draw viewers to its remake of Roots, a remake of the 1977 ABC miniseries based on Alex Haley’s best-selling novel about the journey of an African-American family through slavery. The four-night, eight-hour series will premiere May 30 on A+E Networks outlets History, A&E and Lifetime.

With viewers looking to the past to see how its events shaped today’s issues, the genre is as popular now as ever, History general manager Jana Bennett said.

“It’s not accidental that there’s been some success with shows that look at real stories, rather than just fictional depictions, and that’s true of O.J., Underground and [Netflix’s drug-themed series] Narcos,” she said. “I think the audience is really up to seeing the real story of how did we get here and looking at the bigger questions of what’s the context of where we are now, and how it reflects history.

“There’s a real need among viewers for a change of pace from the acceleration of today’s technology-driven environment and an appetite for history, which helps to answer the question of how we got here in the first place,” Bennett said.

WGN America’s drama series Underground generated 1.4 million viewers for last night’s premiere episode, setting a network ratings record for an original series, according to Nielsen.

The series, which which depicts slaves escaping along the 19th century’s Underground Railroad, bested the Jan. 26 premiere of network drama Outsiders, which drew 1 million viewers in its debut.

With replays, the March 9 Underground premiere averaged 2.5 million viewers for the night, according to Nielsen.

The series, executively produced by singer/writer John Legend, stars Jurnee Smollet-Bell and Aldis Hodge.

RELATED:Bringing ‘Underground’ to the Surface: A Q&A With John Legend | MCN Original Video: Content Spotlight on 'Underground'

WGN America shines a light on the Northern escape of slaves from the South in its new original series Underground.

The series, created by Misha Green and Joe Pokaski, stars Aldis Hodge (Straight Outta Compton) as Noah, a field slave who has tried to escape his slaveowners several times, only to be caught and beaten for his transgressions. Yet his thirst for freedom is never quenched, so – armed with a map outlining the road to the North -- he plans another attempt at escape, but this time he tries to bring in others to join him on his journey.

Meanwhile inside the house serving the plantation owning family is Rosalee (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), who along with her mother Ernestine (Amirah Vann), lives a more comfortable existence than the slaves in the field, yet slaves they remain.

A chance encounter in which Rosalee is ordered to tend to Noah’s wounds from a violent lashing due to his last escape attempt sets the stage for an eventual joining of the two as they both look for the freedom that exists for themselves and other slaves outside of Georgia.

Noah’s plan is not without fear or consequences, and the series’ initial episodes brilliantly capture the grit and passion of the slaves’ desire to be free and the perils they face in obtaining their goal. The action within the plot will have viewers on the edge as executive producer John Legend cleverly weaves both contemporary and period music to gin up the often thrilling scenes incumbent to the planning of the slaves’ ultimate escape. The opening scene in particular sets the tone for the series as a slave runner is pursued through the woods to the beat of Kanye West’s "Black Skinhead."

Underground also benefits from a strong supporting cast, which includes Noah’s partners Moses (Mykelti Williamson), Sam (Johnny Ray Gill) Henry (Renwick Scott) and Zeke (Theodus Crane), as well as his nemesis Cato (Alano Miller). Outside the plantation, farmer August Pullman (Christopher Meloni), abolitionist lawyer John Hawkes (Marc Blucas) and his wife Elizabeth (Jessica De Gouw) contribute a different, nuanced perspective to the main slave escape plot.

While the series’ title is based on the real-life Underground Railroad that allowed slaves to escape the southern states through an intricate network of trails, much of the series’ early action takes place on the plantation. Undoubtedly future episodes will further weave that historical element into what is a very entertaining series that will have viewers anxiously awaiting the next weekly episode.

WGN America will add to its original scripted series lineup with the deveopment of two new shows, the network announced Monday.

The network has greenlit to pilot Roadside Picnic, a sci-fi series based on the novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky in which aliens have come and gone on earth, leaving humans to explore the mysteries left behind in the remains of the alien culture, said network officials. Jack Paglen (Transcendence, Alien: Covenant), Alan Taylor (Mad Men), Vivian Cannon (Preacher) and Neal Moritz (The Fast and the Furious) will serve as executive producers on the project.

Scalped, based on the DC Comics grahic novel series written by Jason Aaron, takes palce in the world of a Native American Indian reservaion led by an ambitious Chief who has to deal with a renegade who has returned home after years away from the reservation. Doug Jung (Banshee) and Geoff Johns (The Flash) will serve as executive producers on the project, said network officials. 

RELATED: MCN Review: WGN America's 'Underground'|MCN Original Video > Content Spotlight: WGN's 'Underground'

Grammy-, Golden Globe- and Oscar-winning singer/songwriter John Legend is looking to hit the right notes on TV, serving as executive producer of WGN America’s antebellum drama series, Underground, which depicts the “Underground Railroad” used by 19th-century African-American slaves to escape the South for the free states and Canada (premiering March 9). He also produced the title song. The 37-year-old Legend discussed his move into television, along with his Get Lifted production company, as well as diversity on the small screen with Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead. An edited transcript follows.

MCN:What drew you to theUndergroundproject?

John Legend: We were happy to join a team that was already in place with [show creators] Joe [Pokaski] and Misha [Green] and an amazing cast. We’re just happy to help bring the story to light because that’s what producers do — we collaborate with great creative people. I think it’s such a powerful and riveting show and I want people to see it.

MCN:Did you have any apprehensions about moving into the television arena?

JL: [Get Lifted partner Mike Jackson] convinced me that because of who I am and what I do this would be a great opportunity to have an impact in the business, since I’m already plugged into the creative community and Hollywood. I’m an English major who loves to read and consume great stories, as well as great TV and film, so I can use my influence in the community to help bring great stories to light.

MCN:You also had a big hand in directing the music for the show. Since this is a period piece was it difficult to create and match music to the time in which the story takes place?

JL: We used contemporary music, and while we also used period music, we didn’t want it to feel stuck in that era. We wanted to connect it with current popular culture and make it feel like it was coming off the walls of a museum and feel more present and alive. We all went into it with that vision — we didn’t want it to feel staid and stiff, and feel like you were doing a homework assignment to watch it. We wanted it to feel alive and full of action, suspense and thrills. So the music helped us do that.

MCN:Do you think younger viewers will gravitate to the series given its historical nature?

JL: We’re trying to make this relevant to anybody who’s watching it — black, white, Latino, Asian, young or old. We’ve been removed from slavery now for several generations, and we know a little about it from history books, although I think our history classes don’t do a good enough job of telling the stories. We think the power of the story itself and the characters, as well as the storytelling by the director and the music, will connect it to a younger generation. We didn’t slap in new music just to make it cool for the kids, but we really tried to make the music feel organic to what was happening in a given situation.

MCN:Do you think the increased amount of multicultural-themed shows on television helps the overall appeal and interest in the show?

JL: It’s clear that you’re able to see a lot of people of color on television right now in various roles and time periods, and I think the success of shows like Empire, Black-ish, Scandal and other shows where we’re seeing black people in positions of power doing things behind and in front of the camera shows Hollywood and the powers that be that it’s important to tell diverse stories, and creates a climate where it’s easy for us to get this type of show on the air. We’re really starting to see a diverse range of content — not just black and white, but also Asians, Latinos, people of different eras and different countries. You’re seeing a lot of subcultures that are being explored in great television shows, and this is an important story and time period in American history, and we’re excited to get this story on the air.

MCN:What other projects are you working on?

JL: We’re producers on a movie Southside With You, which premiered at Sundance. We’re also working on a couple of documentary projects, not to mention I’m working on a new album and expecting a baby [with wife Chrissy Teigen].

WGN America's Jan. 26 premiere of drama series Outsiders set a network viewership record, the network said Monday.

The series, which debuted commercial free on WGN America (to read the MCN series review, click here), drew 3.9 million viewers according to Nielsen Live +3 ratings, including premiere-night replays and digital-platform views, network officials said, citing Nielsen and WGN America digital data. The premiere drew about 1 million total viewers in live plus same day results, rising to 1.78 million in L+3, per Nielsen. Four encore replays on the debut night added about 1 million viewers, according to the network, and digital platforms Crackle (the show is co-produced by WGNA owner Tribune Media and Crackle owner Sony Pictures Television), YouTube and Facebook delivered more than 1 million views. 

If you add in eight more encores (including commercials) after Tuesday, the total viewers' figure for the premiere week rises to 5.5 million, according to 80-million-subscriber WGNA.

The 13-episode series follows the exploits of a tight-knit family of renegades who have lived atop a mountain for over two hundred years and who are fighting to defend their land and way of life from the coal industry and residents of the town below.

"We felt that Outsiders was exceptional, but there is no greater validation than this kind of viewer response." said Matt Cherniss, President and General Manager, WGN America and Tribune Studios. "We’re grateful for the stellar cast and creative team, Peter Mattei, Peter Tolan and Paul Giamatti, and our producing partners at Sony Pictures Television, and we thank the fans, who continue to inspire us to deliver one-of-a-kind storytelling at WGN America."

FX on Tuesday (Feb. 2) will premiere a new, scripted series focused a true-to-life, high-profile criminal trial with racial overtones: specifically, the case of an African-American man accused of murder amid the shadow of alleged police misconduct.

It’s a scenario that might have been ripped from today’s headlines, but FX’s The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story takes its cue from the trial of the former National Football League star, held more than 20 years ago.

As issues of race continue to influence the country’s discourse on politics, crime and punishment and entertainment — the recent flap over the lack of diversity in nominations in high-profile Oscar categories comes to mind — cable networks look to tap a growing interest in scripted content that reflects real-life African-American stories and people both past and present.

RELATED:Channeling Cochran, 20 Years Later: Courtney B. Vance on How Time Will Bring Perspective to ‘The People v. O.J. Simpson’

UNDER-TOLD TALES

From the highly-anticipated People v. O.J. Simpson, to History’s upcoming remake of Roots to WGN America’s Underground, which depicts slaves escaping along the 19th century’s “Underground Railroad,” networks are offering true stories that most viewers will recognize, but haven’t been fully explored either on the small screen or in highschool history books.

In many cases, they feature common threads that tie into the complex issues of race facing the nation today.

“Black is the new black,” Stephen Hill, BET’s president of programming, said. “There’s a variety of stories being told on a lot of different platforms, so it’s an exciting time for this kind of television, and it makes everyone step their game up.”

Indeed, original series and movies featuring real-life African-American themes have recently garnered both ratings success and industry awards:

• HBO’s Bessie took home four 2015 Emmy Awards last September, including one for best television movie, and garnered Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice, Emmy and Screen Actors Guild award nominations for lead actress Queen Latifah’s portrayal of blues singer Bessie Smith.

• Lifetime’s Jan. 23 original movie Toni Braxton: Unbreak My Heart, a biography of the popular contemporary rhythm and blues singer, drew 3.6 million viewers and was the most-watched original cable movie among adults 25-54 and women 18-49 since Whitney, Lifetime’s Whitney Houston biopic, in January 2015.

• Book of Negroes, BET’s six-part miniseries airing in February 2015, drew more than 13 million viewers across multiple platforms during its run. It was also the most-watched miniseries by African- American audiences across key demos.

Another half-dozen cable original series, miniseries and movies based on true-life African-American stories are slated to debut later this year or are in development.

CRIME, PUNISHMENT, RACE

As entertainment projects featuring mainly African-American casts gain critical and audience success, there’s been more interest in shows with historical themes related to the black experience in America, executives said.

“If you look at the landscape today, TV shows like Empire to theatrical films like Creed and Straight Outta Compton have been huge commercial successes,” FX Networks and FX Productions CEO John Landgraf said. “I think there’s now a greater willingness to embrace more content with African-American themes and perspective.”

Shows such as The People v. O.J. Simpson appeal across audience demographics because they touch on hot-button issues of crime, punishment and race that the U.S. is still wrestling with, Landgraf said.

Viewers are also fascinated by true stories that challenge the perceptions and realities of the criminal justice system, as evidenced by interest in such shows as HBO’s The Jinx and Netflix’s Making of a Murderer.

“I think O.J. is about this moment in time right now, and the debate going on in the United States about how equitable our society is or is not, and includes a specific focus inside the debate about the equity within the criminal justice system,” Landgraf said. “In general, we’re interested in the weakness and the strengths of our own criminal justice system. They speak to the flaws of our system and potential police misconduct, but also, frankly, to the weaknesses of juries as well.”

TV movies like Bessie or HBO’s upcoming Confirmation — which depicts Anita Hill’s sex-discrimination charges levied during the 1991 Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — are strong stories of a type that has received little TV fanfare, but with universal storylines that appeal to all viewers, HBO Films president Len Amato said.

UNDERSERVED AUDIENCES

It also helps that these shows appeal to a still-underserved African- American audience that watches more TV than any other ethnic group. African-Americans watched 43 hours of live TV per week during the second quarter of 2015, compared with 24 hours by Hispanics and 16 hours for Asian-Americans.

“First and foremost, people are looking for a good story, because those are color-blind,” Amato said. “Then, you’re reaching audiences that are underserved. Even if you don’t have a progressive bone in your body that cares about diversity, just on that level alone, where the rubber meets the road, it’s good business.”

Plus, younger viewers who might not know the gritty details of the O.J. Simpson saga or about the Underground Railroad can identify with the storylines and plots.

“So many people don’t know the Anita Hill story — it’s not exactly something that’s pushed in the history books — so if it brings the story to a new generation and they gain some insight, or they take pride in the fact that a situation like this could lead to empowerment, [that] is good,” Amato said.

The trial of O.J Simpson, as portrayed in the FX series (see related Q&A), set the stage for much of what we see on TV today, Landgraf said.

“It’s the mother of all true reality stories; it is the beginning of the 24-hour news cycle and of crime as infotainment,” he said. “Most young people believe that the most fascinating, crazy stuff that’s ever happened in the world of reality television has happened in their lifetime and, when they see this, they’re going to realize that many of the things that happened during this trial [are] still the craziest thing that’s ever happened to reality TV.

“It gave rise to the media environment in which young people have lived their entire lives,” Landgraf said.

Underground (premiering Wednesday, March 9) was more about telling a good story than teaching a history lesson, WGN America president and general manager Matt Cherniss said.

Though the characters in Underground are fictional, the series stays true to the documented history surrounding the Underground Railroad, the 19th-century network of secret escape routes and safe houses used by runaway slaves.

“Obviously, it’s a controversial time period and it’s a subject matter that’s sensitive and takes a high level of execution and care when you approach it,” Cherniss said. “But when I read the script, I just read a great adventure and not a period piece.

“Too often to this point, people have looked at that particular time period and felt that it needed to be honored in such a way that there wasn’t an opportunity to insert a bit of genre into the storytelling,” he added.

The fact that the pilot includes a Kanye West song — procured under the watchful eye of executive producer John Legend — also can’t hurt in reaching millennials, even if the series is set some 150 years before the hip hop superstar was born.

MORE IN THE PIPELINE

As demand across numerous platforms for diverse, scripted content continues to grow, networks see room to make more stories based on what they call the treasure trove of good, true-life African-American themed stories that have yet to be told.

Along with History’s retelling of the classic miniseries Roots, based on the novel by Alex Haley, HBO in May will debut the original movie All the Way, which chronicles the relationship between President Lyndon B. Johnson and Dr. Martin Luther King in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement.

BET is developing biographical movies on the R&B music group New Edition and on former South African president Nelson Mandela.

“People like to know that what they’re seeing has some basis in the truth,” BET’s Hill said. “Also, with these projects you get to see what’s behind the curtain of stories that you already know the beginning, middle and end of.”

Added WGN America’s Cherniss, “Having many more outlets out there creating original content and looking at things that are distinctive as far as the subject matter is concerned does provide a broader landscape for different stories to be told.”

Black History Month: What to Watch

A sampling of shows set to air in February

Feb. 1

Change Agents: History in the Making(short films)

TV One

Feb. 2

The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story(limited series)

FX

Feb. 3

Preachers of Atlanta(reality series)

Oxygen

Feb. 5

47th Annual NAACP Image Awards

TV One

Michael Jackson’s Journey From Motown to ‘Off The Wall’(documentary)

Showtime

Feb. 9

Here We Go Again (series)

TV One

Feb. 10

The Next 15(reality series)

TV One

Feb. 13

SportsCenter on the Road From Hampton University(special)

ESPN

Feb. 14

Rise Up: SportsCenter Black History Month Special(special)

ESPN

Feb. 24

About the Business(reality series)

BET

Feb. 29

Major League Legends: Hank Aaron(special episode of docuseries)

Smithsonian Channel

Hate in America(documentary)

Investigation Discovery

Also This Month:

• Disney XD and Disney Channel will run a documentary-style interstitial that illustrates the bravery of young African-Americans through the lens of Cameron Boyce (Descendants) and his timeless hero, Jo-Ann Boyce — his grandmother, who was one of the Clinton 12, a group of 12 black Tennessee teens who were the first to integrate into an all-white high school in the South in 1956, following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.

• Music Choice will offer a package of music videos dubbed “The New Classics,” including videos from Drake, Fetty Wap and Rihanna, as well as videos from the soundtracks of popular black movies such as Straight Outta Compton.

Manhattan fans can take heart. WGN America said Thursday (April 16) that production has begun on season two of the drama, which chronicles the rocky Los Alamos, N.M., road to the development of the atomic bomb.

The series is shot in Santa Fe and produced by Lions Gate Television, Skydance Television and Tribune Studios.

The series will start up again in the fall and has added former CSI star William Peterson to the cast.

Manhattan's executive producers are Sam Shaw, Thomas Schlamme, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Marcy Ross and Dustin Thomason.

The drama series was renewed in October, having averaged 1.2 million viewers in its freshman season (Live +7), per Nielsen.

William Petersen will look to take Manhattan via way of Los Alamos.

Marking his return to television, the former CSI star is now a member of  the cast of WGN America’s Manhattan, which beging production on its second season next month.

Petersen, who deivered a 10-season Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated run as Gil Grissom on CSI, will now portray Colonel Emmett Darrow, a religious and mysterious military officer at Los Alamos.

Returning cast for the series, produced by Lionsgate Television, Skydance Television and Tribune Studios, and expected to bow later this year,  includes John Benjamin Hickey, Olivia Williams, Ashley Zukerman, Rachel Brosnahan.

WGN America continues to ramp up its original series production, with the recent straight-to-series order of Underground, which joins Manhattan, Outsiders, Ten Commandments and Salem.  Viewers can catch up on the latter, as WGN America will encore the entire rookie season on April 4, the day before Salem's second season bows at 10 p.m. (ET).

Those who missed the first season of WGN America' s initial orginal scripted series Salem, or want to relive the supernatural skein will have their chance on April 4.

WGN will encore the show's entire, 13-installment rookie campaign beginning at 7 a.m. (ET)/ 6 a.m. (CT). The marathon will serve as a lengthy primer for the series' second-season bow on April 5 at 10 p.m. (ET)/9 p.m. (CT). Check out the sophomore season trailer here.

In Salem, the witches may be real, but they are not who or what they seem.  Season two opens at the dawn of a Witch War in 17th-century colonial Massachusetts.  As the disease and devastation unleashed by a deadly supernatural ritual spread through the war-torn village, Salem's most powerful witch, Mary Sibley, must face off against adversaries old and new who are vying for her throne.

From creators and writers Brannon Braga (Cosmos, 24) and Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut), Salem stars Janet Montgomery (Human Target, Made in Jersey), Shane West (Nikita, ER), Seth Gabel (Arrow, Fringe), Ashley Madekwe (Revenge), Tamzin Merchant (Jane Eyre), Elise Eberle (The Astronaut Farmer) and Iddo Goldberg (Mob City). 

New cast members this season:  Lucy Lawless (Xena: Warrior Princess, Spartacus), Stuart Townsend (Betrayal, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), Joe Doyle (Raw) and Oliver Bell (The Saint).

WGN America’s drama series Manhattan, an imagining of the people, science and internal conflicts that went on during the Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb late in World War II, won the 2015 SXSW Jury Award for Excellence in Title Design, besting 22 other film and television finalists, including Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Marvel Studios), American Horror Story 4: Freakshow (FX), Godzilla (Warner Bros.), 22 Jump Street (Columbia Pictures) and The Leftovers (HBO). Dan Gregoras, creative director at Imaginary Forces, illustrated the winning title design. Manhattan’s main title sequence can be viewed here. A full list of winners of 2015 SXSW Film Awards is here.

Manhattan, which debuted in 2014, will return for a second season later this year (see this story). Earlier, John Lindley, the director of photography, won the American Society of Cinematographers’ Outstanding Achievement Award in a Television Movie, Miniseries, or Pilot for his work on the premiere episode of the series, “You Always Hurt the One You Love.”

Tribune Media Co. said its WGN America is debuting on cable television systems in Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle and Washington, D.C., starting today, as it begins converting from a superstation to a cable network. Tribune said these first launches are occurring on Comcast systems under agreements with the nation's largest cable operator. More launches and conversions will be happening on distributors this month and throughout 2015, Tribune said.

The conversion -- which means obtaining license fees under agreements from distributors instead of royalty payments -- follows Tribune's investment in original content on WGNA, including new series Salem and Manhattan, both of which have been renewed for second seasons in 2015. The network's first two unscripted series, Wrestling with Death and Outlaw Country will premiere on Tuesday, Jan. 13, and Tuesday, Feb. 24, respectively. WGNA also is adding syndicated dramas Person of Interest, Elementary and Blue Bloods in September 2015.

More as the story develops.