Now, making RFD-TV programming available on tablets, phones, and connected TVs. It was added to Sling TV on April 4, 2017 as part of the "Heartland Extra" add-on service. With an average of 136,000 viewers in 2016, RFD-TV has some of the highest viewership relative to availability compared to other "ultra-niche" networks with similar or wider distribution owned by major corporations. History RFD-TV (Rural Free Delivery Television) was launched in 1988 by Patrick Gottsch. However, the channel was not picked up by any carriers. This attempt ended in bankruptcy. Another attempt was made in the 1990s, but could not get funding. Gottsch continued to look for programming. Beginning in 2000, the channel was a non-profit. RFD-TV was finally picked up by Dish Network in December 2000 then DirecTV in 2002. In 2007, the channel converted to for-profit status after the Federal Communications Commission ruled that the commercial nature of RFD-TV's programming disqualified it from treatment by carriers as a programmer for noncommercial programming of an educational or informational nature. The company then rented a Nashville studio and hired experienced TV executives including Ed Frazier, former Liberty Sports CEO. A TV simulcast of Don Imus’s radio show was arranged which got RFD-TV picked up by Comcast and Time Warner. RFD-HD, a high definition feed of RFD-TV that broadcasts in the 1080i resolution format, first began broadcasting in high definition in the fall of 2007. In mid-2009, the channel gained carriage on Cox Cable. RFD began a rural news department in late 2009 with bureaus in London and Washington, DC. Rural Media contracted with Sony Pictures Television in September 2013 to handle RFD-TV's and other properties' national ad sale. By August 2014, Rural Media Group began moving its Northstar Studio/RFD-TV staff and some of its Omaha, Nebraska staff into subleased office space at 49 Music Square West, Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee. The rest of the Omaha staff would follow in 2015 except Gottsch. In the 2016 presidential election, the Trump campaign purchased all possible advertising spots in the last two weeks before the election. By January 2017, the channel opened a bureau in Sao Paulo, Brazil to cover Brazil's growing agriculture industry, which is heavily interconnected to the United States through companies like Brazil's JBS. A Canadian version of the channel was launched on February 1, 2020, on Shaw Direct television systems through a partnership with Rural Media. Programming Imus in