James Hibberd

CourtTV changed its name to truTV, which takes the name of a fully distributed and firmly branded cable network and makes it sound like a start-up venture huckstering cable operators from a booth at the National Show circa 2002. You can almost see the freshly printed truTV banner and pair of bored trade show girls manning a basket of complimentary truTV-branded pens.

According to B&C, a team of seven Turner executives sorted through 4,000 names before deciding on truTV, which is sort of like reading 4,000 books before deciding Dean Koontz is your favorite author.

The problem for CourtTV (since nobody has yet told CourtTV’s own Web site their name has changed, I’m going to keep using CourtTV here) is their viewers prefer their car chase-and-autopsy programming to actual legal shows so a name change to something more action-based does make sense, but perhaps something that sounds less like a meditation network hosted by Rodney Yee could work better.

Interestingly, the last cable network devoted to those type of shows was the Europe-based RealityTV network … last seen at the National Show circa 2002.

Also: Yes, this is a new blog, which means I join the elite ranks of TVWeek.com’s dozens of blogging professionals. The name of the blog is “Rated,” but that’s not on the page yet (long, technical story). Starting tomorrow, I’ll be blogging from cable and broadcast TCA, so bookmark this URL if you are so inclined.