Paramount Network
Paramount Network is an American basic cable television channel owned by the MTV Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Media Networks, a division of Paramount Global. The network's headquarters are located at the Paramount Pictures studio lot in Los Angeles.
This article is about a present-day television channel. For the streaming service, see Paramount+. For the international networks, see Paramount Network (international). For the defunct television network, see UPN.Type
General entertainment cable network
United States
Nationwide
English
1080i HDTV
(downscaled to letterboxed 480i for the SDTV feed)
March 7, 1983
(1983–2000)
The National Network
(2000–2001)
The New TNN
(2001–2003)
Spike TV
(2003–2006)
Spike
(2006–2018)
The channel was originally founded by a partnership between radio station WSM and Westinghouse Broadcasting as The Nashville Network (TNN) and began broadcasting on March 7, 1983.[1][2] It initially featured programming catering towards the culture of the Southern United States, including country music, variety shows, outdoors programming, and motor racing coverage (such as NASCAR). TNN was purchased by the Gaylord Entertainment Company in 1983.[3] After Gaylord bought CMT in 1991, TNN's music programming was shifted to CMT, leaving TNN to focus on entertainment and lifestyle programming.
In 1995, TNN and CMT were acquired by Westinghouse, which was in turn acquired by Viacom in 1999. Under Viacom ownership, TNN would phase out country-influenced programming in favor of a general entertainment format appealing to Middle America. It was renamed The National Network in September 2000, coinciding with the network premiere of WWF Raw. In August 2003, TNN relaunched as Spike TV, which targeted a young adult male audience. From June 2006, the network's programming had a more explicit focus on the action genre, while in 2010, the network had an increased focus on original reality series. This culminated with a final rebrand in 2015 to emphasize gender-balanced series (such as Lip Sync Battle) and a return to original scripted programming. On January 18, 2018, Spike relaunched as Paramount Network, aiming to align the network with its namesake studio (which previously lent its name to the now-defunct United Paramount Network), and to position it as a flagship, "premium" channel.
One of Paramount Network's only major successes in scripted programming has been Yellowstone—which quickly became the channel's flagship drama, and has spawned multiple spin-offs on Paramount+, the streaming service owned by its parent company Paramount Global. In 2020 and 2021, the channel cancelled most of its original series or moved them to other Paramount Global networks, as part of a proposed plan to relaunch the Paramount Network with a focus on made-for-TV films. By January 2022, these plans had been scrapped due to the impact of COVID-19 and success of the Yellowstone franchise, leaving it and Spike holdover Bar Rescue as the channel's only original, first-run programs. The channel has also featured limited engagements of new Paramount+ original series by Yellowstone co-creator Taylor Sheridan, using Yellowstone as a lead-in.
As of September 2018, approximately 80.24 million households in the United States received Paramount Network.[4]
Website[edit]
On October 15, 2005, Viacom acquired iFilm, which was initially launched in 1997. After acquiring the website for $49 million, it was eventually rebranded to Spike.com and provided hosting of user-uploaded videos in a short-lived attempt to compete with YouTube (which Viacom had sued to remove user-generated uploads of its programming from), a strategy eventually abandoned to refocus Spike.com as a general network site. The iFilm.com domain redirected to the Screen Junkies website for a period of time.
During the era where they hosted user generated content, Spike.com's managers only approved videos pre-screened to meet their standards.[103] On January 18, 2018, Spike.com was sunsetted, and viewers were redirected to the new Paramount Network site and domain.
