Pop

About Pop

Pop, commonly known as Pop TV, is an American basic cable television channel owned by Paramount Skydance Corporation through its MTV Entertainment Group. Operating as a general entertainment outlet centered on popular culture, the network carries a mix of original scripted comedies, reality series, and encore programming aimed at pop-culture fans. The channel that viewers know today as Pop has one of the longest continuous histories in American cable, tracing its roots back to 1981, when it launched as a simple on-screen program guide service. It has operated under the names Electronic Program Guide, Prevue Guide, Prevue Channel, TV Guide Channel, TV Guide Network, and TVGN before adopting the Pop name in 2015. From its base in Los Angeles, California, the network reaches millions of pay-television households and is available through major cable, satellite, and streaming distributors nationwide. Its official website is poptv.com.

From Electronic Program Guide to Prevue

The story of Pop begins on January 1, 1981, when a new cable service called the Electronic Program Guide went on the air. The service was a so-called barker channel: instead of airing shows, it displayed a scrolling grid of localized channel listings and program information for cable subscribers, a practical utility in an era when home electronics offered no built-in guide of their own. Over time the service, owned by United Video Satellite Group, added interstitial segments alongside the listings, including entertainment news, interviews, and promotions for upcoming programs. Rebranded as the Prevue Guide and later simply Prevue, the channel became a fixture of cable lineups across the country, giving viewers their first glimpse of programs before choosing what to watch. For nearly two decades, its identity was defined not by the shows it carried but by the guide it displayed.

The TV Guide Acquisition and the TV Guide Channel

The channel's transformation began in 1998, when United Video Satellite Group acquired the iconic entertainment magazine TV Guide. The following year, satellite program-guide giant Gemstar acquired United Video Satellite Group, and the Prevue service was relaunched as the TV Guide Channel, aligning the television service with the famous publication. In this incarnation, the channel began to look less like a utility and more like a network, adding full-length programs devoted to the entertainment industry, including news magazines, reality shows, and red-carpet coverage from major award shows. The listings scroll remained, but the channel was gradually becoming a destination for celebrity and entertainment coverage in its own right, a shift that would accelerate dramatically in the years that followed.

Lionsgate and the Shift to General Entertainment

In 2009, the film and television studio Lionsgate acquired the TV Guide Network, and the channel's programming began a decisive move away from listings and entertainment news toward general entertainment. Under Lionsgate, the schedule filled with reruns of popular dramas and sitcoms, repositioning the channel as a conventional entertainment outlet. The original purpose of the service had grown obsolete: integrated program guides built into digital cable boxes and satellite receivers had made the scrolling listings redundant, and the channel began phasing them out. By June 2014, none of the network's carriage contracts required the display of the listings at all, and the listings were excluded entirely from the channel's high-definition simulcast, closing the book on the barker-channel era.

CBS Takes a Stake and TVGN Is Born

In 2013, CBS Corporation acquired a 50 percent stake in the network, forming a joint venture with Lionsgate. The channel was renamed TVGN as part of the deal, a shortened brand intended to carry it beyond its TV Guide origins. The partnership brought the resources and distribution clout of CBS to a channel that was still finding its footing as a general entertainment service. The listings service continued its decline during this period, and the network's schedule increasingly resembled that of a traditional cable channel, built around syndicated comedies and dramas rather than program information. The TVGN era lasted just under two years, serving as a bridge between the channel's guide-service past and the pop-culture identity it would soon adopt.

Rebrand to Pop

On September 18, 2014, CBS and Lionsgate announced that TVGN would be relaunched as Pop in early 2015, with the rebranding officially taking effect on January 14, 2015. The new name reflected a sharper focus on pop-culture fandom, and the network committed to carrying 400 hours of original programming following the rebrand. Among the launch-era originals were a reality series starring the pop group New Kids on the Block and the Canadian co-production Schitt's Creek, a sitcom about a formerly wealthy family forced to rebuild its life in a small town. Pop became available on AT&T U-verse on March 1, 2016, broadening its distribution, and in November 2015 the network announced that Impact Wrestling, the flagship program of what was then known as TNA Wrestling, would move to Pop from Destination America beginning January 5, 2016. The wrestling series remained on the channel until the start of 2019, when it departed for the Pursuit Channel after Pop declined to renew it.

Schitt's Creek and the Comedy Identity

The defining program of the Pop era became Schitt's Creek, the Canadian sitcom created by Eugene Levy and Dan Levy that Pop brought to American audiences. The series, which follows the wealthy Rose family as it loses its fortune and relocates to the rural town of Schitt's Creek, grew steadily in acclaim throughout its run, earning Emmy nominations and a devoted fan base. Its success gave Pop a signature identity as a home for critically respected, character-driven comedy on basic cable, a notable achievement for a channel that had spent decades as a program guide. The show's cultural footprint helped establish the Pop brand in the minds of viewers who had never heard of TVGN, and its awards-season recognition validated the network's bet on original scripted programming.

One Day at a Time Finds a New Home

Pop made national headlines again in June 2019 when it announced that it was picking up One Day at a Time for a fourth season after the sitcom's cancellation by Netflix. The reimagining of the classic 1970s Norman Lear series, centered on a Cuban-American family in Los Angeles and starring Justina Machado and Rita Moreno, had been canceled by the streaming service earlier that year despite critical acclaim and a passionate fan campaign. Pop's rescue marked the first time a cable network had saved a canceled streaming series, and the 13-episode fourth season premiered on March 24, 2020, airing Tuesdays following Schitt's Creek. Pop TV president Brad Schwartz praised the show as brilliant and culturally significant, celebrating its ability to address social issues through the lens of a relatable family. The season was ultimately curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, producing six proper episodes plus an animated election special, and Pop opted not to renew the series for a fifth season, with Sony Pictures Television shopping it elsewhere.

CBS Full Ownership and the Paramount Era

On March 12, 2019, CBS acquired Lionsgate's 50 percent stake in Pop, making the channel a wholly owned part of CBS Cable Networks. Later that year, on December 4, 2019, CBS merged with Viacom to form the combined company ViacomCBS, later renamed Paramount Global and subsequently Paramount Skydance Corporation. Pop became part of the company's networks unit, managed alongside sister channels in the MTV Entertainment Group. The corporate transition brought changes to the channel's strategy: with the conclusion of Schitt's Creek and the reassignment of Pop within the company's entertainment and youth division, the network pulled back from original scripted series and settled into its current role as a home for pop-culture programming, encore series, and fan-favorite comedies.

Programming Today

Today Pop remains a general entertainment channel with pop culture at its core. Its schedule draws on reality programming, reruns of popular television series, and original unscripted content, serving a younger-adult audience that follows celebrity culture, comedy, and fandom-driven entertainment. The channel's evolution from scrolling listings to scripted comedies to its current lineup illustrates how thoroughly the cable landscape has changed since 1981: a utility born of necessity became an entertainment brand shaped by the shows its viewers love. Episodes of its best-known series continue to draw audiences through cable reruns and streaming availability, and the Schitt's Creek legacy remains closely associated with the Pop name.

Availability and Contact

Pop is distributed as a basic cable and satellite channel through major providers across the United States, and its programming information, schedules, and show pages are available at poptv.com, the network's official website. The channel is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, and operates as part of Paramount Skydance Corporation's networks division through the MTV Entertainment Group. From its origins as the Electronic Program Guide in 1981 through Prevue, the TV Guide Channel, TVGN, and finally Pop, the network has remained continuously on the air for more than four decades, one of the longest-running channels in American cable television.