Digital Multicast Channel Ion Life Launches

Ion Media Networks (formerly Paxson) has launched its latest digital channel.

The 24/7 lifestyle channel, Ion Life, is a digital multicast channel carried on Ion-owned stations, and will also program a weekly hour block on the Ion Television, carried on the analog channels of the former Paxson stations, which reach about 93 million homes, according to the company.

Ion Life features health-related programming from NBCU, which is a third owner of Ion, including from Dateline, the Today show and NBC Nightly News.

At launch, the channel focused on health, fitness and nutrition, but plans to expand to include sports, travel, shopping and "best of" guides.

Ion Life's debut follows by only about six weeks the January launch of Qubo, Ion's digital kids network, a portion of which also airs on the analog Ion (as well as NBC and Telemundo).

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.