For the second time this month, a major broadcast company has dropped a lifestyle television network.
This week, Paramount Global’s Dabl quietly relaunched as a new general entertainment network with a focus on Black-strong sitcoms.
The channel, which previously offered shows like “Martha Stewart Living” and “60 Minute Makeover,” now includes a slate of off-network re-runs like “Girlfriends,” “Half & Half,” “Sister, Sister” and “Moesha.”
It is the second terrestrial comedy channel that Paramount has launched without much fanfare over the last few years. Three years ago, Paramount debuted a new channel called Fave TV on the digital sub-channels of its CBS owned-and-operated stations.
Paramount has offered no public explanation for the decision to relaunch Dabl with sitcoms, but a person familiar with the company’s broadcast strategy noted that Paramount holds the distribution rights to nearly all the sitcoms that now air on Dabl.
Many of those sitcoms also stream for free on Pluto TV, and Paramount stands to save some money by distributing content it owns outright versus licensing different lifestyle shows for Dabl, the source said.
The full slate of shows airing on Dabl (not including required educational/informational programming, which carries over from the old Dabl) follows below:
- The Game (10 p.m. ET/PT)
- Girlfriends (8 p.m. ET/PT)
- Half & Half (7 p.m. ET/PT)
- Moesha (4 p.m. ET/PT)
- One on One (2 p.m. & 2 a.m. ET/PT)
- The Parkers (6 p.m. & 6 a.m. ET/PT)
- Sister, Sister (Noon & Midnight ET/PT)
Dabl is available on a digital subchannel of most Paramount-owned channels, including CBS stations in New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Denver, Sacramento and Pittsburgh. Nationally, Dabl is available to stream on Google-owned pay TV service YouTube TV; before the relaunch, Dabl was available on free streaming platforms like Paramount-owned Pluto TV and Comcast’s Xumo Play.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story reported Dabl’s availability on free streaming platforms. Following its relaunch, the free streaming version of Dabl was dropped in favor of broadcast and cable carriage.
