Meet Jane Velez-Mitchell, Founder of UnchainedTV
- Tammy Reese
- Jun 4
- 4 min read
Meet Jane Velez-Mitchell, Founder of UnchainedTV
UnchainedTV began as a one-woman media revolution. In late 2014, after the final wrap of her own nightly TV show on CNN Headline News, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Jane Velez-Mitchell picked up a GoPro camera and hit the streets to document a fast-growing and often overlooked movement: the plant-based lifestyle and animal rights. “I’m unchained,” she declared — and a media revolution was born.
A veteran host and reporter who has worked at CNN, CBS, Disney, and Telepictures, Velez-Mitchell had always used her on-camera platforms to spotlight animal issues. But traditional media wasn’t telling the real story about the plight of animals. She wanted to get the truth out. When Facebook launched live broadcasting in 2016, she launched LunchBreakLIVE, a daily vegan cooking show that reached 17 million views in one year. With 800,000+ followers on her Facebook page, she empowered citizen journalists to livestream from animal rights vigils, vegan festivals, and protests worldwide
In 2018, JaneUnchained became a nonprofit. The following year, its founder, Velez-Mitchell, produced the award-winning documentary Countdown to Year Zero, exposing animal agriculture’s role in climate collapse.
In 2020, collaborating with Emmy-winner Eamonn McCrystal, the team launched the award-winning New Day New Chef on Amazon Prime. This celebrity-packed vegan cooking series became a global success and has been picked up by PBS stations around the nation as well as Gusto TV, often billed as the “World’s Best Food Channel.”
Encouraged by these achievements, in 2022 McCrystal proposed launching an independent, nonprofit- streaming TV network. With just $50,000 in seed funding, UnchainedTV, the world’s first free, plant-based streaming TV network, was born.
UnchainedTV’s first hit, Pig Little Lies, also made history as the first-ever reality TV series starring pigs, which was viewed more than a million times on the UnchainedTV streaming network and other platforms including PBS. With the launch of UnchainedTV, we also initiated live coverage of trials involving animal activists prosecuted for the open rescue of factory farmed animals.
In 2024 UnchainedTV produced two award-winning, vegan lifestyle television series. One, Kale Krew, won Best City or Regional Program at the Taste Awards, considered the “Oscars of Food.” Also in 2024, UnchainedTV launched the first plant-based/animal rights FAST television channel. FAST channels are a major new trend in the media. In the U.S., 66–69% of TV viewers now watch FAST and it’s exposing UnchainedTV to new global audiences.
2025 is already a breakthrough year. UnchainedTV now hosts a library over 2,000 titles — from documentaries to cooking shows to biographies to live events. It publishes daily across social media and continues adding to its 300+ library of podcasts with weekly shows. It also regularly produces written articles that are picked up by Google News.
And we’re just getting started.
UnchainedTV is the world’s only free, streaming television network dedicated to the plant-based lifestyle and animal rights movement. Often called the “Vegan CNN/Netflix,” we systematically document, aggregate and broadcast the work of the world’s most impactful animal advocates. UnchainedTV provides a living history of the vegan/animal rights movement in real time to a global audience. With over 2,000 videos and a powerful multi-media ecosystem, UnchainedTV bursts through the vegan echo chamber, reaching the general public.
UnchainedTV’s online portal: https://watch.unchainedtv.com
Often, we’re the ONLY media organization covering an event, trial or campaign, unafraid to hold major corporations to account when they are found to be abusing animals. We deliver hard-hitting journalism, inspiring documentaries, video podcasts, reality TV series, vegan cooking shows, health advice, plus LIVE news coverage. Research shows that when 10–15% of a population embraces a new behavior, it sparks a societal tipping point. By making the plant-based lifestyle accessible and mainstream, UnchainedTV is accelerating this global shift.
Our mission is to inspire and educate individuals on the benefits of a vegan lifestyle, highlighting the positive impacts on human health, climate change, virus prevention, and animal welfare. Our vision is to significantly contribute to a societal shift towards a plant-based culture encompassing food, fashion, science, and entertainment.
Our ultimate goal is to fill the information gap left by advertiser-based mainstream media, providing compelling content that motivates viewers to reconsider their lifestyle choices and adopt a cruelty-free, plant-based way of living. We achieve this goal by leveraging mass media platforms, including streaming TV apps, Fast Channels, Video on Demand platforms, social media and news articles to disseminate the vegan message globally.
Nancy, and Bobby’s friend Connie helped the Hills navigate a changing world.
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