This entry contains information applicable to United States law only. The Courtroom Television Network (Court TV) is a cable network devoted to explaining law to the layperson. Founded in 1991, this novel venture in television programming was a long shot: few thought a twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week diet of live trials and legal analysis would suceed. However, within two years, the network ranked fourth in the Nielsen Company's daytime cable ratings. It built this record with gavel-to-gavel coverage of civil and criminal trials, including a string of highly publicized cases in the early 1990s, as well as with a mixture of regular programs that examine in simple language how the legal system works. This nuts-and-bolts approach coincided with — and, to an extent, helped influence — controversial changes in legal journalism. Lawyers, judges, and the media are divided over whether the public is served or misled by the Court TV approach, and this debate only intensified after comprehensive coverage of the O. J. Simpson murder trial in 1995.
Changes in the media and the law paved the way for Court TV. From the 1960s to the 1980s, reporting on legal affairs was largely the business of two markets: specialized publications for lawyers and daily newspapers. The former was highly detailed; the latter took a broad, general approach. Television took the most sparing look at the law, usually in small slices of news broadcasts. But as state laws increasingly permitted television cameras in state courtrooms, the role of television increased. At the same time, another trend shook up television itself: the public's appetite for so-called reality programming, a format popularized by shows such as the National Broadcasting Company's Unsolved Mysteries and the Fox Network's Cops and America's Most Wanted. Cheaper to make than dramas and sitcoms, this programming subsequently glutted the airwaves in the form of cops-and-criminals shows, tabloid journalism, and "infotainment" (the combination of information and entertainment).
Court TV was created by legal publisher Steven Brill. Known as an innovator, Brill had founded American Lawyer magazine in 1978. Neither as technical as law journals nor as cursory as the mainstream press, the trade magazine critically profiled attorneys and law firms, dealt with matters such as how juries reach decisions, and generally modeled its methods on investigative journalism. It emphasized the inner workings of the law — taking an approach that ten years later, television was avidly pursuing with law enforcement. In July 1991, with the financial backing of Time Warner, Brill launched Court TV. The network initially broadcast an obscure Florida murder trial, but soon it had high profile cases to cover such as the prosecution of murderer-cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer and the trials of accused parent murderers Erik Menendez and Lyle Menendez. Court TV's viewership slowly increased.
In addition to essentially live trial broadcasts — delayed by ten seconds to preserve confidential information about jurors, witnesses, and attorney-client privilege — Court TV developed legal affairs programs. In Context, an analysis show hosted by Arthur Miller, a Harvard Law School professor, is an intellectual look at legal and social issues. Instant Justice, in contrast, turns its cameras on the often emotional scenes played out in night courts by problem drinkers and traffic violators. Other programs condense entire trials into two-hour highlights (Prime Time Justice) or follow accused persons from jail to court (The System) in what the network calls "the ultimate lesson on how the judicial process works, outlining legal failures and successes through the lives of those who are players in the system." Its weekly debate program, Washington Watch, has featured guests such as U.S. attorneys general Janet Reno and Edwin Meese III.
See: broadcasting; cameras in court.
