Trio TV Builds a Cable Network That Only Exists on Streaming

Most streaming services launched by trying to leave cable behind. Trio TV is doing something stranger. It’s bringing cable’s core idea back, the linear channel with a personality and a schedule, and putting it somewhere cable was never supposed to live.

The new global network runs three linear channels organized around what it calls Talk, Learn, and Entertain. One handles talk programming, another covers documentaries and educational content, the third runs general entertainment. There’s also a growing on-demand library underneath the live feeds. None of it airs on cable first. Other networks treat their streaming apps as a secondary distribution play. Trio built the schedule for streaming from day one.

Think about what happens when you open Netflix or Prime Video. You’re picking individual titles off a menu. There’s no channel guiding the experience, no programming director making decisions about what plays in prime time. Cable solved that problem decades ago with themed networks and a curator’s hand. Trio is trying to bring that feel back without asking anyone to call a cable company.

The person making the call here is Codrin Saftiuc, and his path to running a TV network is part of why Trio looks the way it does. He spent years in Romania building a property development and material supply business, which isn’t where most media founders come from. In 2012 he launched Playboy Moldova and repositioned it as a lifestyle brand rather than leaning on the obvious play. The publication isn’t currently operating, but that work of taking an American media property and reshaping it for a specific European market is where the vision for Trio came from. He knows that a viewer in Eastern Europe doesn’t want the same programming as a viewer in the US, and he’s betting that’s what most US networks miss when they push their content overseas.

That shows up in how Trio handles geography. The service is free worldwide and ad-supported, with one US feed and one international feed currently running, and plans for more localized feeds by late 2026. Programming shifts by market, with interstitials and content meant to reflect the region it’s playing in. Most American networks that air internationally treat the rest of the world as one undifferentiated audience. Trio’s pitch is that it’s actually a local network wherever it shows up.

Saftiuc’s ambitions extend past the TV network. Trio Pictures, the company’s film division, is working toward a catalog of more than 1,000 titles by the end of 2026, including shorts, features, and documentaries. Trio Radio runs as a 24/7 audio station available on iHeartRadio, Amazon Alexa, Amazon Fire, and Shoutcast, built around the same three-pillar concept as the TV network. There’s also Trio’s stance on ads, which is that streaming has gotten obnoxious about them. Instead of the rapid-fire ad rolls that interrupt content every few minutes elsewhere, Trio runs limited commercial breaks.

Cable’s audience kept shrinking because the format felt dated, not because nobody liked having channels. Trio’s bet is that the format wasn’t the problem. The pipes were. You can find the network at Trio TV.