Philo Drops Digital News Channel Newsy; Network Prepares For National Broadcast Distribution

Philo and E.W. Scripps-owned Newsy have mutually decided to end their contract. On Thursday morning, Philo removed the Newsy channel from its platform, making the 24-hour digital news channel no longer available to its subscribers. This is due to a technical issue, as well as a plan to offer Newsy over-the-air.

A Philo spokesperson confirmed this to The Desk, saying, “The service was due to be removed as part of Newsy’s industry-wide transition on June 30, but due to ongoing technical difficulties, Philo and Newsy mutually agreed to terminate the service early.” It’s unclear what the technical difficulty was but with only a couple of weeks until June 30, it may not have been worth it for the companies to look into it.

In April, Scripps had revealed plans for Newsy to become an over-the-air channel, and as a result, they had planned to remove the channel from cable and pay television services by the end of June. Though Newsy is still accessible on AT&T, Dish Network’s Sling TV, fuboTV, Verizon Fios, Spectrum, and Comcast’s Xfinity, it will be removed in the coming weeks.

This big change for Newsy, slated to occur on October 1, will make Newsy available to 80% of households across the nation free to television viewers with an antenna. According to a release by Scripps, the service will be carried primarily by Scripps-owned Ion Television stations and select Scripps local television stations and those of other station groups.

In addition to Newsy, Scripps owns other broadcast digital networks including Court TV, Court TV Mystery, Bounce, Brown Sugar, Grit, Laff, and Ion. Scripps purchased Ion Media for $2.65 million last September.

Newsy had joined the Philo lineup in October 2020.

If you have a Philo subscription and you’re wondering how you can watch the news, rest assured that you can still access Bloomberg, Cheddar, and BBC World News.