The E. W. Scripps Company’s free streaming news channel Newsy has relaunched under the Scripps News branding.
The relaunch took place shortly after the start of the new year as part of a strategic reorganization of the channel’s identity around the Scripps brand.
“In the creation of Scripps News, we are leveraging the company’s collective resources and building upon the equity of the Scripps name and stellar reputation for journalism,” Adam Symson, the CEO of Scripps, said in a statement last October. “The American people need greater access to free, quality local and national journalism produced by a company committed to fact-based news and information.”
The channel will continue to be headquartered in Atlanta and will be overseen by Kate O’Brian, who is also in charge of Scripps News’ sister channel, Court TV.
Little else will change about Scripps News: The channel will continue to be distributed for free across a wide variety of platforms and services, including Comcast’s Xumo, Paramount Global’s Pluto TV, Fox Corporation’s Tubi and via Newsy apps for phone, tablets and smart television sets (the Newsy app is expected to be renamed Scripps News over the coming days).
Newsy was created in 2008 by a former NBC News executive who decided to launch a digital-first news service. At the start, Newsy focused on distributing news clips to third party partners, including the Huffington Post and Gas Station TV. The service was headquartered near St. Louis for most of its early existence until Scripps acquired the brand in 2014 for $35 million.
For several years, Scripps operated two variants of Newsy: A free, ad-supported streaming service that contained rolling news clips, and a pay television feed distributed to cable operators and some streaming services like Philo and YouTube TV. Shortly after Scripps acquired in Ion Networks, the company announced it would stop offering the pay TV version of Newsy and transition the service to a free, ad-supported streaming news channel. The transition happened in late 2021.
The re-brand of Newsy to Scripps News will create more synergy between the news channel, Scripps news bureaus and more than 60 local broadcast stations owned by the company. The Scripps Washington bureau will continue to produce political and investigative journalism that will air on its national news channel and local stations. Meanwhile, local reporters will contribute to Scripps News, while Scripps News will produce packages that are available to air during local news broadcasts.
“Since the company’s inception more than 140 years ago, we have served audiences with the highest ethics and standards of independent journalism,” Symson said. “The rebrand, merger of resources and reorganization reflects our company’s longstanding commitment and belief that journalism is central to our mission.”
Scripps News is available as a 24-hour feed on many Scripps-owned local broadcast outlets, including full-power Ion Networks stations. A free, live feed is available on the Newsy (soon Scripps News) website, as well as Newsy (soon Scripps News) apps for Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV (Google TV) and Roku.
Scripps News is available as a free channel within several third party streaming services, including Amazon’s Freevee, Fox Corporation’s Tubi, Comcast’s Xumo, Paramount Global’s Pluto TV, Haystack News, Allen Media Group’s Local Now, Plex, Dish Network’s Sling TV, the Roku Channel, Samsung TV Plus, LG Channels, Redbox TV, TiVo Plus, Vizio’s WatchFree Plus and YouTube.
