Grit is an American free-to-air television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network features classic westerns - both TV series and films - targeted at men between the ages of 25 and 54 years old. The network is available in many media markets via the digital subchannels of free-to-air television stations and on the digital tiers of select cable providers through a local affiliate of the network. Originally, Katz sold the network to affiliated TV stations via ad split, but by October 2015 had moved to paying carriage fees in exchange for distributing the network's ad inventory.1 Grit used direct response advertising as a meter of viewers before switching to Nielsen rating C-3.3 It is available on Dish Network, DirecTV Stream and AT&T U-verse. History Grit was announced by Katz Broadcasting along with a sister network Escape on April 3, 2014, with a formal launch scheduled for that summer with initial affiliates announced at this time being Univision Communications owned stations. On August 11, 2014, Katz announced that the two networks would launch simultaneously on August 18. Grit launched at Noon Eastern Time on that date, with the 1952 film High Noon as the network's inaugural broadcast, leading off a week-long festival of John Wayne films. Katz estimated, based on direct response advertising business by September 2015, the network had over 250,000 prime time viewer and available in 91 million homes and 81% of the country. At that time, Grit along with its sister network, Escape, were signing up for national ratings from Nielsen. Previously handling the network's direct response advertising, Marathon Ventures would continue after the change over with advertising and sponsorship sales. Following Scripps' acquisition of Ion Media on January 7, 2021, a previous agreement for the network to air on the subchannels of Univision Communications-owned-and-operated stations, was nullified. The network then moved to the stations of Ion Media and Inyo Broadcast Holdings (which acquired stations Scripps could not) as a subchannel, doing so by March 1, 2021 replacing the Ion Plus, Shop Ion and Qubo channels. Programming Grit's program schedule features westerns such as Death Valley Days, Laramie, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, and Tales of Wells Fargo, along with various western films. Katz Broadcasting president and CEO Jonathan Katz based the demographic-targeted concept of Escape and Grit after Bounce TV, a network Katz co-founded with Martin