Television broadcaster TEGNA will launch a new digital network on Monday.
The network, branded as Twist, will offer lifestyle, knowledge and reality-based shows aimed at women, with each show offering a “twist” toward the end of each episode.
“Twist will provide an exciting new viewing option for our female audience with content that has not been available through a multicast channel until now,” Brian Weiss, a top executive at TEGNA, said in a statement. “The launch of Twist will enhance TEGNA’s leadership among non-fiction multicast networks, delivering the kinds of free content that over-the-air viewers crave.”
At launch, Twist will offer replays of past network and cable programs, including “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” “Top Chef Masters,” “Tiny House Nation” and “Flipping Out.” During each program, Twist will ask members of its television audience to submit their own videos with stories of “twists” they’ve encountered in a feature called “Share Your Twist.”
Twist is the third digital network programmed and distributed by TEGNA, the television broadcaster that was spun off from the Gannett Company in June 2015. TEGNA also programs and distributes the knowledge-focused channel Quest and the crime-heavy True Crime Network (formerly Justice Network).
Twist will be carried on a digital broadcast sub-channel on each of TEGNA’s 41 owned stations, including KXTV (Channel 10) in Sacramento and KFMB (Channel 8) in San Diego. In addition to TEGNA’s own stations, the broadcaster has secured carriage agreements with HC2 Broadcasting and Univision, which will see the network land on another 42 stations across the country.
TEGNA says those agreements coupled with placement on its own stations will help Twist reach 70 percent of the U.S. television market when the network starts on Monday. Additional agreements are expected to follow, and TEGNA says Twist should roll out to more viewers later this summer.
