Court TV, which came back on the air in May, has set a 37-part docuseries looking back on the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial. It will be Court TV’s first foray into the original programming space.
The series, titled “OJ25,” will look back at the “Trial of the Century,” with each episode focusing on every week of the 37-week trial. Court TV has every minute of the trial in its library.
“OJ25,” which will premiere in January 2020, will present, explore and contextualize the main events of the trial coinciding with the same week 25 years earlier. Exclusive new interviews with the key players in the case will take people behind-the-scenes of the trial, providing fresh perspective and insight on legal strategies and maneuverings, missteps, lost opportunities and more, according to Court TV.
Legal analyst Roger Cossack, who has appeared frequently on ESPN and truTV, will host the series.
“Mining the vast Court TV library of more than a thousand trials provides the new opportunity to tell compelling true-crime stories and create captivating content supporting our live, gavel-to-gavel coverage of the country’s top current trials,” said Jonathan Katz, president and CEO of Katz Networks, which owns and operates Court TV.
“Everyone knows one line from Johnnie Cochran. They don’t know what really happened,” Scott Tufts, vice president and managing editor for Court TV, added Saturday during the Television Critics Association press tour. “For many viewers under the age of 40, this will be their first opportunity to see the trial.”
“OJ25” is the first of the “Court TV Mysteries,” which is what the network’s calling its new original docuseries programming. According to Court TV, these will “present real-life stories of betrayal, greed and murder leading to justice in the courtroom. These sordid stories will be told through Court TV trial footage, stylized re-creations, expert investigative insights and exclusive legal and law enforcement analysis.”
The original Court TV, which went off the air in 2008, gained notoriety for its extensive coverage of the Simpson trial, as well as the murder trials of Casey Anthony and the Menendez brothers. Katz, owned by the E.W. Scripps company, acquired Court TV’s intellectual property, including the trademark, website and complete, original 100,000-hour Court TV library from Turner Broadcasting back in December of last year.