Dabl

About Dabl

Overview

Dabl (pronounced "dabble") is an American digital multicast television network owned by the CBS News and Stations subsidiary of Skydance Corporation and operated by Weigel Broadcasting. Founded on June 27, 2019, and launched on September 9, 2019, Dabl debuted as a female-targeted lifestyle network, airing cooking shows, home renovation and design series, do-it-yourself programming, pet care, and travel content, much of it drawn from the libraries of Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse. On December 29, 2023, management of the network transferred to Weigel Broadcasting, and Dabl was relaunched with a new format centered on Black sitcoms from the mid-1990s through the mid-2010s, including Moesha, The Parkers, and Sister, Sister. The network is carried on broadcast subchannels across the United States and on major streaming platforms, and its official website is dabl.com.

Founding and the Lifestyle Launch

Dabl was founded by CBS Television Stations as the company's first foray into the digital multicast space. The network launched on September 9, 2019, as a multi-platform, advertiser-supported lifestyle network anchored by the CBS Television Stations group and cleared in the vast majority of the country, including all of the top 25 markets. Its programming was described as informative, project-based, feel-good content, with an emphasis on cooking, home renovation and design, DIY projects, travel destinations, and pets. In addition to the CBS-owned charter stations, the network launched on subchannels of stations owned by groups including Tribune Broadcasting, Meredith Corporation, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Univision Communications, and HC2 Broadcasting, reaching roughly 70 to 90 percent of American television households. The schedule featured programming from the libraries of world-renowned lifestyle experts including Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse, along with reruns of series such as Undercover Boss.

The Lifestyle Format

In its original 2019–2023 incarnation, Dabl offered a daytime-friendly mix of cooking, home, and lifestyle programming aimed primarily at women. Shows centered on recipes and entertaining from Martha Stewart's extensive television library, cooking series fronted by Emeril Lagasse, home renovation and design programs, DIY project shows, pet-care series, and travel features. The format was designed to be advertiser-friendly and broadly appealing, slotting into the lifestyle genre dominated on pay television by networks such as HGTV and Food Network, but offering the content free over the air. Steve LoCascio, chief operating and financial officer of the CBS Global Distribution Group, said at launch that the strength of CBS's distribution and ad-sales teams, combined with its station group and the depth of its library, provided significant opportunities to mine in the digital landscape, and that lifestyle programming represented a huge upside in the marketplace.

The 2023 Relaunch

On December 29, 2023, CBS Media Ventures relaunched Dabl with a dramatically different format. The network pivoted from lifestyle programming to Black-oriented sitcoms, sourced mainly from the Paramount library at first, with titles from other companies — including Warner Bros. — added later. The new lineup focused on sitcoms from the mid-1990s through the early to mid-2010s, with Moesha, The Parkers, and Sister, Sister among the flagship titles. At the same time, Weigel Broadcasting took over operations of the channel, although the network remained fully owned by CBS. The relaunch transformed Dabl from a daytime lifestyle service into a comedy network celebrating Black television, giving classic Black sitcoms a dedicated national broadcast home.

Ownership and Operations

Dabl is owned by CBS News and Stations — the station group now operating within Skydance Corporation following the 2025 combination of Paramount and Skydance — under the DABL Network LLC entity, and it is operated by Weigel Broadcasting. Day-to-day leadership has included CBS distribution executives such as Steve LoCascio, while Weigel's national-network team oversees programming and operations from Chicago. The network's headquarters are in New York City. As a Weigel-operated network, Dabl sits alongside the company's wholly owned national diginets — MeTV, MeTV+, MeTV Toons, Start TV, Heroes & Icons, Movies!, Catchy Comedy, Story Television, and WEST — giving Weigel one of the largest portfolios of digital multicast networks in the United States.

The Black Sitcom Lineup

Since the December 2023 relaunch, Dabl's schedule has centered on beloved Black sitcoms that originally aired from the mid-1990s through the mid-2010s. The lineup draws heavily on the Paramount television library, home to UPN-era hits such as Moesha, starring Brandy as a Los Angeles teenager; its spinoff The Parkers, starring Mo'Nique and Countess Vaughn; and Sister, Sister, starring Tia and Tamera Mowry as twin sisters reunited as teenagers. The addition of Warner Bros. titles broadened the bench further. By concentrating these series on a single network, Dabl offers viewers a curated destination for Black television comedy — programming with deep cultural resonance and enduring rewatchability — in the same way that Weigel's other networks curate westerns, procedurals, or classic sitcoms for their own audiences.

Distribution and Coverage

Dabl reaches a large share of American television households through its over-the-air affiliate stations, with over-the-air coverage reported at nearly 80 percent of the country. The network launched with clearance in all of the top 25 markets and has maintained broad national distribution through the CBS station group and its affiliate partners. In addition to broadcast, Dabl streams on Frndly TV, FuboTV, Hulu with Live TV, Philo, and YouTube TV, making it one of the most widely available diginets on virtual pay-television platforms. The network broadcasts in 720p high definition on its master feed, with affiliates carrying it in high or standard definition depending on their preference. Its official website, dabl.com, provides schedule information and details on where to watch.

Position in the Weigel Portfolio

Dabl occupies a distinctive place in Weigel Broadcasting's portfolio: it is the only national network the company operates but does not own. The arrangement, which began in December 2023, reflects the deepening relationship between Weigel and CBS, which had already partnered on Start TV in 2018. For CBS, handing operations to Weigel — the most experienced diginet operator in the business — allowed the network to be repositioned quickly and professionally. For Weigel, Dabl added a comedy-and-culture brand that complements its genre-specific channels without duplicating them: Catchy Comedy covers classic sitcoms broadly, while Dabl focuses specifically on Black sitcoms, giving each network a distinct identity and audience.

Evolution and Significance

Dabl's history illustrates how quickly the digital multicast business can reinvent itself. Launched in 2019 to capture the advertiser-friendly lifestyle audience, the network spent four years as a free over-the-air alternative to cable's home-and-food channels before its owners concluded that a different format — Black sitcoms with passionate, multigenerational fan bases — offered a stronger path forward. The 2023 relaunch also highlighted a broader trend: classic Black television, long underrepresented in syndication and streaming, finding new homes on dedicated platforms. For viewers, Dabl's evolution means that the same channel position that once offered cooking and home renovation now delivers some of the most beloved comedies of the 1990s and 2000s — a transformation that underscores both the flexibility of the diginet model and the enduring appeal of the sitcoms themselves.

The Lifestyle Era in Detail

During its 2019–2023 lifestyle era, Dabl's schedule was built around the libraries of two of the biggest names in lifestyle television. Martha Stewart's extensive catalog — including series from the Martha Stewart Living franchise — offered cooking, entertaining, gardening, and homekeeping programming that had made Stewart a household name. Emeril Lagasse's shows brought his signature high-energy cooking instruction to the network's daytime lineup. The network also aired reruns of Undercover Boss, the CBS reality series in which executives work undercover in their own companies, alongside home renovation and design series, do-it-yourself project shows, pet-care programming, and travel features. The format was deliberately feel-good and project-based: viewers could watch a renovation, learn a recipe, or pick up a DIY technique, all in the course of a normal viewing day. Positioned as a free over-the-air alternative to cable's HGTV and Food Network, Dabl's lifestyle era gave cord-cutters and antenna viewers access to the genre's most recognizable personalities without a pay-TV subscription — until the December 2023 relaunch redirected the channel toward Black sitcoms and a new audience.