Seven years ago, Court TV was on its last legs. All but written off, it looked to have the prospects of a death row inmate with no pardon in sight, as abysmal ratings and advertisers' disinterest threatened to shutter the network and displace hundreds of employees.

At death's door, the network experienced a dramatic revival, and today it prospers and shows no signs of relapse. Just run the numbers, pull out the spread sheets, check the ratings. Here's what you will find: 85 million subscribers, four times the number in 1998; a network that ranks in the top 12 to 15, no small feat considering the multiplicity of choices; and a news operation that, when at the top of its game, as it was for two weeks in May, places second to the powerhouse Fox News Channel.

Whodunit?
The man who resuscitated Court TV is Henry Schleiff C'70, L'73, a broadcast veteran with a quarter-century of experience on the business and creative side. Count Matt Apfel L'90 among his fans. Apfel, a former producer at Court TV, remembers how Schleiff, in a heroic rescue effort, brought an immediate transfusion of energy and ideas to a sinking ship, reinventing and relentlessly promoting the network as he went. "I defy anyone to think of a better turnaround (in cable television). There's never been a place that came back from the dead like Court TV."