Type | Digital broadcast television network |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Broadcast area | Nationwide, via OTA digital TV (coverage 82.99%), [1] Stremium, and Stirr. |
Affiliates | List of Charge! affiliates |
Headquarters | Hunt Valley, Maryland |
Programming | |
Language(s) | English |
Picture format | 480i (SDTV, widescreen) |
Ownership | |
Owner | Sinclair Broadcast Group |
Parent | Sinclair Television Group, Inc. |
Key people | |
History | |
Launched | February 28, 2017 |
Replaced | The Works |
Links | |
Webcast | Watch live |
Website | watchcharge |
Charge! is an American digital broadcast television network owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group that airs action and adventure-based programming. It launched on February 28, 2017, and was originally a joint venture with MGM.
In addition to its broadcast network affiliates, Charge is also available through its website and apps.
Since 2014, Sinclair had launched several digital broadcast networks, or "diginets"; including the American Sports Network (formally Sinclair's sports programming arm which became the framework for Stadium), [3] and TBD (which targets millennial audiences). [4] The science-fiction network Comet, launched in October 2015, was Sinclair's first joint venture with MGM. [5] Charge! was formally announced by Sinclair and MGM on January 17, 2017. [5]
The network debuted on February 28, 2017, at 10 am (ET) with an airing of the 1978 film Here Come the Tigers . [6] [7] Stations carrying The Works replaced the network with Charge. [8]
Ring of Honor Wrestling , the weekly professional wrestling television series produced by the then-Sinclair-affiliated Ring of Honor, was syndicated on the network from July 9, 2017, to 2019. The series was previously syndicated to Comet. [9]
In 2020, MGM sold their operation stake in Charge and Comet to Sinclair. [10] On April 6, Charge! began airing Magnum, P.I. and Knight Rider . [11] In the Fall, Charge began airing Hunter .[ citation needed ]
In the years since Sinclair took control of the network, Charge would begin acquiring more contemporary crime dramas; including CSI: Miami in June 2021, CSI: NY in late 2022, and Without a Trace and Law & Order: Criminal Intent in 2023.[ citation needed ]
Charge! currently provides up to 18 hours of programming to its owned-and-operated and affiliated stations on weekdays from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. Eastern Time and weekends from 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. Eastern Time. The remaining vacated hours are occupied by paid programming.
Programming on Charge! was originally sourced from MGM's library, and was expressed by Sinclair's press release announcing the launch as "one of the deepest libraries of premium action-themed content in the world." Launch titles indicated included the TV series In the Heat of the Night and The Magnificent Seven , the Rocky and James Bond film series, and other motion pictures including Platoon and Dances with Wolves . [5] As a result, the network has a similar demographic to that of Heroes & Icons and Start TV.[ citation needed ]
At its outset, Sinclair slated the launch of Charge! to primarily take place on digital subchannels of stations it owns or operates. Other Sinclair stations will likely add Charge! during Spring 2017 (and also used it to replace Grit and Ion Mystery when their carriage agreements with Sinclair expired in January 2018), and Sinclair will continue to offer the network to stations outside its geographic footprint (the company projects Charge to reach over 50% of the U.S. by the end of 2nd quarter 2017). [6] As of February 12, 2019, there are 56 affiliates of which 49 have the network on the air and 7 that have committed to broadcasting the network. [1] It was announced that YouTube TV will add Charge! to their lineup on June 1, 2023.
Sinclair, Inc., doing business as Sinclair Broadcast Group, is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, the company is the second-largest television station operator in the United States by number of stations, after Nexstar Media Group, owning or operating 193 stations across the country in over 100 markets, covering 40% of American households. It is the largest owner of stations affiliated with Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, MyNetworkTV, and The CW. Sinclair owns four digital multicast networks, Comet, Charge!, The Nest, and TBD, and sports-oriented cable networks, Stadium, Tennis Channel, and Bally Sports Regional Networks. In June 2021, Sinclair became a Fortune 500 company, having reached 2020 annual revenues of US$5.9 billion, equivalent to $6.8 billion in 2023.
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A digital multicast television network, also known as a diginet or multichannel, is a type of national television service designed to be broadcast terrestrially as a supplementary service to other stations on their digital subchannels. Made possible by the conversion from analog to digital television broadcasting, which left room for additional services to be broadcast from an individual transmitter, regional and national broadcasters alike have introduced such channels since the 2000s. By March 2022, 54 such services existed in the United States.
On Friday the company said Chief Operating Officer David Amy, who has served in that role and as executive vice president since 2014, will become vice chairman and oversee human resources, corporate marketing and the networks group.
And it also rebranded a classic TV diginet, The Works. It's now called Charge! and has narrowed its retro focus to action-adventure.