[4] TNT's original purpose was to air classic films and television series to which Turner Broadcasting System maintained spillover rights through sister channel TBS.

On June 2001, the network went through a major shift in its programming, and began to focus on dramatic television series and feature films, along with some sporting events (including NBA, NHL, U.S. Soccer, the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament and professional wrestling shows AEW Rampage and AEW Collision), as TBS shifted its focus to comedic programming.

As of September 2018[update], TNT was received by approximately 89.573 million households that subscribe to a subscription television service throughout the United States.

)[7][8][9] The TNT syndication service also produced and distributed the first Goodwill Games—organized by Ted Turner himself, in response to the Olympic boycotts involving the United States and the Soviet Union of the 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics—in 1986.

[11][12] Turner Broadcasting struggled to obtain carriage commitments from various cable providers to commence with the proposed service's launch plans, making TNT's fate uncertain.

[14][15] By February 1988, Turner had disclosed that TNT's programming would focus around movies from the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film library – which Turner acquired as a result of his 1986 sale of the MGM film studio to Kirk Kerkorian – and major television events, including made-for-cable movies, high-profile specials, sports events, documentaries and miniseries.

[21] However, by early 1999, Monday Nitro began to lose viewers to Raw, which became the highest-rated wrestling program on television due to its use of more adult-like storylines.

On March 23, 2001, the WWF acquired most of the assets of WCW, which had been up for sale since late 2000; Monday Nitro aired its last episode three days later.

Under the terms, Turner would acquire an approximate 10% interest in Time Warner Entertainment as well as oversee its subscription network group—comprising the Turner and Home Box Office units and its minority interests in Comedy Central and E!—and hold a position on the company's board of directors (which he retained until he stepped down from the company in February 2006) upon the merger's closure.

[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] The merger received regulatory approval on September 12, 1996; the Turner–Time Warner deal was finalized one month later on October 10, forming what at the time was the largest media company in the world.

The Rudy and Gogo World Famous Cartoon Show, which ran from 1995 to 1997, was an original children's program on the channel featuring Warner Bros., MGM, and Popeye shorts, hosted by a titular pair of a marionette and a nanny goat.

In January 1996, the channel began scaling back its children's programming amid competition in that market from Nickelodeon and Turner-owned sister channel Cartoon Network; at that time, TNT discontinued its late-afternoon block of animated series in favor of airing acquired drama series such as Starsky & Hutch and In the Heat of the Night.

Most of the animated series and shorts that were dropped would also serve as the core of Boomerang, a subscription channel devoted to classic cartoons that launched on April 1, 2000.

During the 1990s, TNT scheduled a weekday afternoon block that included Due South, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Babylon 5.

[35] That year, TNT took over production of the fifth and final season of Babylon 5 from the Prime Time Entertainment Network after the ad hoc syndication block ceased operations.

The slogan emphasized the channel's new focus on dramatic programming, including sports and off-network syndicated dramas such as Law & Order, NYPD Blue, ER and Judging Amy.

The apparent sole purpose of its establishment was to force renegotiations with subscription providers to increase carriage fees—with some multiple system operators suggesting that Turner was seeking a 10% increase in subscriber fees for the channel—to help pay for TNT's new NBA and NASCAR contracts well before the channel's distribution agreements with providers were scheduled to come up for renewal.

The branding campaign reflects the channel's refocusing towards action-adventure, sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, suspense series alongside its slate of crime dramas.

[47][48] On November 20, 2017, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against AT&T and Time Warner in an attempt to block the merger, citing antitrust concerns surrounding the transaction.

[63] On April 26, it was reported that WBD had suspended original scripted series development at TBS and TNT in order to evaluate the channels' strategies moving forward.

At this point, TNT only had two original scripted series still airing first-run episodes, Animal Kingdom and Snowpiercer, both of which are preparing for their final seasons.

[64] On May 11, Brett Weitz was removed as general manager for TBS, TNT, and TruTV; the channels are now overseen by Kathleen Finch as head of U.S.

[68][69] TNT has been criticized for its practice of airing a significant amount of 4:3 standard-definition content stretched to 16:9 on its HD feed, using a nonlinear process similar to the "panorama" setting on many HDTVs that some viewers have nicknamed Stretch-o-Vision.

[73] As a result, TNT's NBA coverage would consist of games involving other teams within the league, with TBS's rights being scaled back to only encompass game telecasts involving the franchise serving its parent television station WTBS's home market, the Atlanta Hawks (which Ted Turner had purchased from Atlanta-based real estate developer Tom Cousins in 1977).

In 1990, TNT obtained partial television rights to the NFL's Sunday Night Football package in a comprehensive agreement in which games were split with ESPN.

The channel shows a wide variety of older and recent American drama and comedy programs (such as 30 Rock, Murder, She Wrote, Monk, Six Feet Under, Seinfeld, ER, The King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones and Falling Skies).

A local version of TNT in Turkey launched on March 3, 2008, by Doğan Media Group as a channel focusing on feature films.

On March 2, 2011, the channel was relaunched as TNT7, following the Turner Broadcasting System's purchase of NonStop Television owner Millennium Media Group.

[93] The European version of TNT was launched for first time in Romania on September 17, 1993, with Cartoon Network, until October 15, 1999, when it was replaced with Turner Classic Movies.

This continued until July 2000, when TNT UK was withdrawn and replaced on the soon-to-decline analog platforms by a cut-down version of TCM, running from 9pm to 1am nightly.