As of October 2019, Game Show Network claimed that it was available to "nearly 75 million" households in America, primarily through traditional cable and satellite services.

[3] On May 7, 1992, Sony Pictures Entertainment joined forces with the United Video Satellite Group to launch the Game Show Channel, which was set to begin in 1993.

[5] On December 2, 1992, Sony Pictures Entertainment made a deal to acquire the Barry & Enright game show library, and in a separate deal, struck a 10-year licensing agreement for the rights to the Mark Goodson game show library of more than 20,000 episodes including among others, What's My Line?, Family Feud, and To Tell the Truth.

[10] By the launch date, the network had secured rights to over 40,000 episodes from the libraries of several game show production companies and corporate parent Sony.

The network eventually began producing original game shows such as Lingo, Burt Luddin's Love Buffet, Whammy!, Inquizition, and Extreme Gong.

Co-hosted by Mary Gallagher and Sean Donnellan, Pause consisted of jokes and skits done while watching certain episodes of game shows, in a similar fashion to Mystery Science Theater 3000.

In 2001, a massive change in both leadership and programming at the network took place when Liberty Media acquired a 50% stake.

[16] Along with its new format, GSN would continue to produce traditional game shows, including new seasons of Lingo and a revival of Chain Reaction.

Notable original game shows produced during this time were Catch 21 (which would be revived in 2019), Baggage (hosted by Jerry Springer), the first U.S. incarnation of The Chase,[23][24][25] American Bible Challenge (the premiere of which drew an audience of nearly two million viewers),[26] and Skin Wars (which would later move to Syfy).

[35] The network's daily schedule would consist almost entirely of original programming, including new shows like America Says, Common Knowledge, and People Puzzler.

Reruns of past original shows airing on the network include America Says, Catch 21, Master Minds, Common Knowledge, Chain Reaction (both Dylan Lane-hosted incarnations), and People Puzzler.

GSN's acquired slate includes Match Game (hosted by Gene Rayburn and Alec Baldwin), Family Feud (hosted by Steve Harvey), Flip Side, Deal or No Deal (NBC version), Jeopardy!

On June 24, 2013, the channel entered into an agreement with Bounce TV, giving it the broadcast rights to The Newlywed Game, Catch 21, and The American Bible Challenge.

[50] In March 2020, the network launched Game Show Central, a digital streaming channel broadcasting archived original programming.

[51] The Roku Channel picked up the service (with a somewhat different schedule and roster of shows compared to the Pluto TV stream) later in 2020.

[53] On October 4, 2023, GSN partnered with sister company Crunchyroll, LLC to launch a Crunchyroll-branded FAST channel dedicated to anime and related programming.

[56] In 2007, Liberty Media acquired the Toronto-based FUN Technologies, operator of the popular online tournament casual game website WorldWinner.