In 1998, Lowell "Bud" Paxson (most famous for unleashing the Home Shopping Network on America's credit cards) established PAX as the seventh commercial broadcast television network in the United States. Paxson was a
born-again Christian who felt that the major networks were too raunchy and violent, and wanted PAX to be
The Moral Substitute. Despite airing a few notable original dramas (such as
Doc, which starred Billy Ray Cyrus, and
Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye), it didn't take.
A problem that dogged PAX from day one was that its initial station roster was descended from PAX's spiritual predecessor, a network named "inTV", also owned by Paxson, whose entire schedule consisted of
infomercials.
* Mostly the infamous Alumaloy infomercial, produced for approximately $6.47 and a couple bus tokens.
In addition, PAX was made up mostly of second-string independent stations purchased by Paxson which either carried religious programming or didn't step up their game with the rise of
Fox,
UPN and
The WB in the last fifteen years and lagged behind everybody else. Most of these stations were high on the UHF dial and weren't licensed to the largest city in their market.
* (For example, the
Washington, DC market needed two PAX stations to make it in; one in West Virginia, the other in Virginia.)
In addition to the infomercials and rare original series, most of the timeslots were taken up by (often
Bowdlerised) reruns of older programs like
Remington Steele,
Scarecrow And Mrs. King and
Bonanza, public-domain movies, and several
Game Shows (including the third incarnations of
Supermarket Sweep and
Shop 'Til You Drop).
The network changed its name to "i" (for "independent") in 2005, and then to "ION" in 2007. Its schedule now consists mainly of
infomercials (with an industry
Running Gag was that the "i" name stood for "infomercial"), movies, and reruns of various shows, which change frequently. As of 2011, they seem to fixate on
NCIS,
Ghost Whisperer and
Criminal Minds, and have added new episodes of
Flashpoint in a unique deal with
CBS to air it outside the summer months. The editing has stopped (except for certain movies which have to meet
FCC regulations), as Paxson left the network in 2005; it might shock viewers who remember the old PAX to see
Scarface on a network that was formerly home to
Promised Land and
Hope Island. They managed to sign a deal with the
Arena Football League to air games starting March 2012.
The network programs two digital subchannels (Ion Life, with health programs, and
Qubo, with children's entertainment) on its stations. Both subchannels have more feature programming than the main feed, with the latter also airing on some
NBC and Telemundo stations (it was created in conjunction with NBCUniversal, which owns the aforementioned networks). A remnant subchannel of the Paxson era, The Worship Network
* (which carried a
Fun for Some format of nature scenery and light music combined with Bible verses projected on the screen)
, left the Ion airwaves in January 2010 but remains on some satellite systems. DirecTV and some Comcast systems air an infomercial-free version of the main Ion feed, a reaction to threats of the network being dropped by the both of them.
Not to be confused with the manga
ION, the play by Euripides, the Saturn car model, or the chemical entity.
Original series include:
Fiction
Game/Reality Shows
- America's Most Talented Kids (2004-05, moved from NBC; repeats of both aired into 2006)
- Animal Tails (2003-04)
- Balderdash (2004-05)
- Beat the Clock (2002-03)
- Candid Camera (2001-04, moved from CBS)
- Dirty Rotten Cheater (January-April 2003)
- Ed McMahon's Next Big Star (2001-02; remake of Star Search)
- The Emeril Lagasse Show (April-July 2010)
- Hollywood Showdown (January-November 2000, moved to being a GSN exclusive)
- It's A Miracle (1998-2004, with repeats into 2006)
- Lie Detector (March-June 2005)
- Miracle Pets (2000-05)
- On The Cover (2004-05)
- The Reel-To-Reel Picture Show (August-October 1998)
- Shop 'Til You Drop (2000-02/2003-05, with repeats in 2002-03 and 2005-06)
- Supermarket Sweep (2000-03, with repeats into 2004)
- Totally Pets (2003-04)
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