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Judge Judy Sheindlin’s forthcoming IMDb TV show has a premiere date.
Judy Justice, the name of Sheindlin’s new courtroom series, will arrive on the Amazon-owned free, ad-supported streaming service beginning Nov. 1, IMDb TV announced today. The series will release new episodes every weekday.
The show will serve as the spiritual successor to Judge Judy, the long-running syndicated broadcast series that dominated daytime television since it began airing in 1996 and finished its 25-season run last year. On Judy Justice, Sheindlin will be joined by retired Los Angeles probation officer Kevin Rasco as bailiff, longtime court stenographer Whitney Kumar and Sheindlin’s granddaughter Sarah Rose, a law clerk who will provide legal analysis.
Behind the scenes, Sheindlin’s longtime Judge Judy collaborators Randy Douthit and Amy Freisleben will serve as executive producers. Douthit is also directing the new series.
“I am probably the luckiest on-air personality in the history of television to have had Randy Douthit and Amy Freisleben shepherd my program for over two decades,” Sheindlin said in a statement. “They continuously make me look good. With Judy Justice on IMDb TV, the magic continues.”
The new daily show is one of the most high-profile projects joining IMDb TV’s growing original programming line-up, which is aimed at replicating the offerings of linear television in a streaming environment. Earlier this year, IMDb TV told advertisers during the NewFronts that its aim was to reinvent broadcast television with a lighter ad load by offering “a little bit of everything for everyone.”
“Judge Judy Sheindlin has been instrumental in shaping the world of television for over 25 years, and she has been a weekday staple for advice, entertainment and the best one-liners in the business,” Lauren Anderson and Ryan Pirozzi, co-heads of content and programming for IMDb TV, said in a statement. “As we continue to build IMDb TV into a modern broadcast network, we are thrilled to have Judy Justice as a signature program that our streaming audiences can enjoy any time of day.”
Sheindlin’s arrival to streaming marks a major changing of the guard in the television industry, as the judge has been a mainstay of daytime local TV for decades. Work on the IMDb TV project has been ongoing for more than a year after Sheindlin announced that the 2020-2021 season of Judge Judy would be its last and that she was working on the Judy Justice project.
In 2017, CBS acquired more than 5,000 hours of Judge Judy episodes. That means many local stations which currently air Judge Judy will continue to air the reruns.
Judy Justice will join a growing slate of originals on IMDb TV, which began pushing into original programming a year ago with the teen spy thriller Alex Rider and a handful of unscripted series. Since then, the programming slate has ballooned to also include docuseries, heist dramas and home design series. In the coming months, it will continue to expand with originals including a spinoff of the show Bosch, an adaptation of the Tegan and Sara memoir High School and a half-hour police drama On Call from broadcast television titan Dick Wolf.
