TBD (TV network)
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| Type | Digital broadcast television network |
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| Country | United States |
| Availability | Nationwide, via OTA digital television (covering 25.38% of all U.S. television households) |
| Founded | December 7, 2016 |
| Slogan |
What's Next (primary) TV for People Who Love the Internet (secondary) |
| Owner | Sinclair Television Group (Sinclair Broadcast Group) |
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Key people
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Launch date
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February 13, 2017 |
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Picture format
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480i (SDTV, widescreen) (downgraded to letterboxed 4:3 on some affiliates) |
| Affiliates | List of TBD affiliates |
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Official website
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www |
TBD (also referred to unofficially as TBD-TV) is an American digital broadcast television network that is owned by the Sinclair Television Group subsidiary of the Sinclair Broadcast Group. Targeting millennial audiences, the network focuses on internet-based series and other digital content (including showcases of user-generated music, animation and comedy videos, eSports, and compiled half-hour and hour-long episodes of short-form web series), along with some feature films.
The development of TBD is traced to a visit by Sinclair Broadcast Group management to the Santa Monica, California headquarters of the Tennis Channel in early 2016 (Sinclair purchased the cable network in January of that year). While touring Tennis Channel's main control room, company executives spotted a monitor carrying the foreign feed of The QYOU, a Dublin-based digital media company and online video service headed by co-founders Curt Marvis and Scott Ehrlich, which curates various online video content aggregated from various producers for European audiences. Seeing the QYOU feed sparked a conversation among the executives about developing a similar service for television viewers in the United States, which Sinclair proceeded to bring to concept.
The company formally announced the planned launch of TBD on December 7, 2016. TBD is the second of three digital broadcast networks that Sinclair has developed and launched during the 2010s: it previously launched the science fiction-focused network Comet in October 2015, and around the time of the TBD announcement, it also disclosed plans to launch action-adventure network Charge!, a joint venture with Comet partner MGM Television that made its debut on February 28, 2017 (since January 2016, Sinclair has also operated a 24-hour feed of the American Sports Network, which is otherwise structured as an ad hoc syndication service aired on an event-driven basis on either the primary channel or subchannel of carrier stations that maintain a conventional entertainment format). To assemble programming and help provide creative support for TBD, Sinclair has retained the services of The QYOU, marking the first venture into advertiser-supported broadcast television for the company, which already operates a pay television service in Europe; The QYOU has not ruled out developing a similar subscription television service in the U.S. or ad-supported networks modeled after TBD in other countries.
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