Ion Television

Ion Television (referred to on-air as simply Ion) is an American broadcast television network and group of FAST television channels owned by the Ion Media division of the Scripps Networks subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented entertainment programming. It rebranded as i: Independent Television (commonly referred to as "i") on July 1, 2005, converting into a general entertainment network featuring recent and older acquired programs. The network adopted its identity as Ion Television on January 29, 2007. For many years, Ion has focused primarily on off-network reruns of existing series, with most of its current schedule devoted to marathon blocks of procedural dramas, along with occasional broadcasts of films (including television films during the Christmas season). In the past, Ion had acquired first-run airings of Canadian series not picked up by other American networks and had also been infamous for devoting much of its schedule to infomercials. Under Scripps ownership, Ion has increasingly added national sports programming from the newly established Scripps Sports division, beginning with packages of Women's National Basketball Association basketball and National Women's Soccer League soccer. Ion is available throughout most of the United States through its group of 44 owned-and-operated stations and 20 network affiliates, as well as through distribution on pay-TV providers and AVOD streaming services; since 2014, the network has also increased affiliate distribution in several markets through the digital subchannels of local television stations owned by companies such as Gray Television and Nexstar Media Group where the network is unable to maintain a main channel affiliation with or own a standalone station, for the same purpose as the distribution of Ion's main network feed via pay-TV providers and streaming services. The network's stations cover all of...