In 2015, MGM launched Light TV, a digital subchannel in the United States, as a way to air its own family-friendly programs. Originally it was supposed to be a streaming-only channel, but was moved to broadcast television and partnered with several local Fox stations. Due to lagging ratings and an inability to expand the channel nationwide, the channel was eventually sold, along with sister station This TV, to Allen Media in 2020.
Wanting to relaunch the channel with a new focus, Allen Media teamed up with Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios, which owned the website The Grio, to remake the channel into a spnioff of the website of the same name. Instead of merely being generalized family friendly programming, the channel would instead focus on African-American demographics, similar to Bounce TV. Most of the daytime programming is made up of movies, with a number of Byron Allen-produced shows filling up the time in between, along with paid programming and courtroom shows.
In August 2022, the network expanded its distribution to cable and satellite providers (in markets where it wasn’t already available on cable via a local affiliate) after Allen Media acquired the assets of Black News Channel, a news channel aimed at Black audiences launched in 2020 that went into bankruptcy in March of that year, with TheGrio taking over BNC’s satellite transponder and provider carriage agreements; it plans to add news and commentary programs similar to those previously offered on BNC onto its schedule by the end of 2022.
Current Programming:
- America's Court with Judge Ross
- Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen
- Ben Casey
- Es.TV
- The First Family
- Jeremiah
- Justice for All
- Justice with Judge Mablean
- Mr. Box Office
- Supreme Justice with Judge Karen Mills
- The Verdict with Judge Hatchett
Former Programming:
- The Adventures of Paddington
- All Dogs Go to Heaven: The Series
- Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?
- The Busy World of Richard Scarry
- The Country Mouse And City Mouse Adventures
- Flipper (original and The New Adventures)
- Franny's Feet
- Green Acres
- Heartland
- Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats
- Highway to Heaven
- Inspector Gadget
- It's About Time
- Madeline
- Mister Ed
- My Mother the Car
- Naturally, Sadie
- The Patty Duke Show
- The Pink Panther Show
- Sea Hunt
- Wimzie's House
