The Status of Cable Television

[DanielMaron 5]

Hi guys! I wanted to get your opinions on the current status of cable television.

 

There have been numerous channels, who in recent months have rebranded to stay relevant and compete for viewers.

 

Examples include:

• TV Guide Network becoming TVGN then Pop
  
• Tru tv dropping their court programing for a more reality based lineup
  
• Rumors that ABC Family will rebrand and may introduce a new name
  
• The Hub being rebranded Discovery Family
  
• The rebranding of the Biography Channel to fyi,
  
• ​The refocusing of Oxygen
  
• The rebranding of Style TV to Esquire Network
  
• Discovery Fitness begin rebranded as Discovery Life
  
• and most recently, the rebrand of HLN
  

After seeing all of these examples are wanted to get your opinion on the necessity and viability of cable television. My opinion is that the cable industry over expanded so far that channel owners competed with themselves. A great example is Style Tv and e!. They were both owned by NBC Universal and showed the same type of programing to the same audience. Seeing the large amount of rebrands and the similarity between them makes me wonder how long all of these channels can remain relevant even with a splashy new graphics package and a long list of cheap programs that draw little viewers.

[rkolsen 1679]

Style and E! both were catered towards women but that's basically the only similarity. E! is much more celebrity and pop culture based while Style focused on fashion and home life. Out of the NBCU portfolio of channels I thought Style and Oxygen were the ones that had the most in common as they focused home life, fashion and aired similar reality shows. If Style was still around today you could probably switch programming with Oxygen and you wouldn't know the difference.

[Mrknowitall526 108]

Over the past month or so I've noticed ABC Family change their look, and they also have new announcers - a different man and now a woman also. Interested to see if anything else comes of it. It's one of my "go-to" channels.

[tyrannical bastard 3488]

It's becoming more of a vast wasteland of reality TV with the occasional hit every now and then.

 

Thanks to DVR's and interactive on-screen program guides, TVGN had to do something to survive, translating TV Guide Network into a meaningless acronym, and now "Pop". The rest has been slowly watering down niche channels into catering to the lowest common denominator, and by "blocking" up their schedules so people can set their DVRs to record ALL of their shows at all hours of the day, especially if they're limited to only doing 1 or 2 recordings at once.

 

And as long as Pat Robertson is cranking out "The 700 Club", whatever channel CBN used to be may be stuck with the "Family" name on it, unless someone risks blowing up the channel and starting anew. Doing so would put their long-established position in jeopardy most likely.

[jmkcool2002 7]

Eventually, we'll see more cable networks move into SVOD or become YouTube channels or YouTube rivals or merge with other cable networks or become solely on demand networks or go to video game consoles and other online providers exclusively. The current model is unsustainable. Most of these networks are offered as pork through the highly demanded networks like ESPN. Eventually, if cable providers lose more subscribers and can't afford to pay for the pork anymore, content providers will have to have alternative methods for their pork to be broadcasted. I don't think that'll happen for a long time though because content providers currently have leverage.

[Action Newsroom 1151]

In the case of The Hub rebranding, I thought it was a great network for kids as an alternative to Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and Cartoon Network. Then, when Discovery announced the rebrand, I thought it was really stupid. It didn't have great ratings during its heyday, so I didn't understand why. With most of the programming being reruns of Discovery Communications' other networks, and almost none of its' own in primetime, I really don't understand why.

• Cheap cost? Maybe.
  
• Competition? Probably.
  
• Need to keep everything grounded before it implodes on a network standpoint? Yes.
  

Also, whatever happened to the acquired show reruns that used to air on The Hub? I thought these would be better than this crap.

 

With my two cents on the other network rebrandings:

• I originally thought another rebrand for the former TV Guide Channel was pointless since it nearly reached 2 years as TVGN, although I agree with tyrannical bastard in that the acronym is meaningless. But now, it makes sense. Since the network is less into giving us info on what's currently on the other networks, and more into pop culture and reality shows, a new name was imminent. And the name Pop is a perfect name for such, especially with the crud and soap operas that's on the schedule.
  
• Discovery rebranding Fit & Health to Life is just changing deck chairs
  
• I wish Disney luck with the rebranding and new look of ABC Family, if true, as I'm just as annoyed with Pat Robertson and The 700 Club as everyone else.
  
• A few weeks ago, I watched this video that's different from this conversation, and from that I realized something that I didn't realize before: when MTV changed from the legendary network for music videos to the crap network with reality shows and teen mishmash today, it wasn't because of brainless execs doing evil work behind-the-scenes, it's because of the changing landscape of TV watching. Since the original demographic doesn't care about it anymore, MTV changed its tune (pun intended). That's the same thing happening with HLN. Since many people are getting news from the internet, or simply isn't watching anymore, and therefore isn't caring about HLN anymore (just waste their time whining about its change), HLN decided to change its direction. By going to the millennials who still watch TV for news from time from time. In short, "If you don't care about HLN anymore, HLN doesn't care about you anymore."
  
• Oxygen is pretty much the same thing, even with a new logo and slogan.
  

[bobvick 9]

Back several years ago, not long after Disney acquired ABC Family from Fox (remember FOX Family), they contemplated changing the name to "XYZ." this was cancelled because they found out that buried in the contract that sold the original "Family Channel" and before that "CBN Cable" later "CBN Family" to Fox by Pat Robertson, was a cluase that the name of the channel would have to have the word "Family" in it in perpitiuity. Also, the 700 Club has to be broadcast 2 hours per day, that is why it still comes on there, and the reason that they can't change the name of the channel, well, they can but, it will have to have "Family" in it.

[Guest Former Member 207]

 

Style and E! both were catered towards women but that's basically the only similarity. E! is much more celebrity and pop culture based while Style focused on fashion and home life. Out of the NBCU portfolio of channels I thought Style and Oxygen were the ones that had the most in common as they focused home life, fashion and aired similar reality shows. If Style was still around today you could probably switch programming with Oxygen and you wouldn't know the difference.

 

Don't forget about Bravo also...when Comcast (E! and Style) and NBCUniversal (Bravo and Oxygen) joined forces, you had four networks that catered to the same audience, although as Ryan noted above, each had it slight differences. Throw in TV One (the joint venture between Comcast-NBCUniversal and Radio One that targets African-American women), there's another network they would something repurpose programming to (or vice-versa), although TV One offer a bit more variety to their programming.

 

As far as the status of cable TV itself, and this is something that some of us discussed in a thread several months ago, there is a evolution as to growth of certain individual cable networks themselves (I mentioned as an example, the evolution of USA Network, with the variety of programming it used to offer--cartoons, game shows, movies, sports, and some original shows). However, as we have seen in recent years, outside of a few networks doing original shows (99 percent of which is in primetime), most cable networks are rerun-heavy with all-day marathons of particular shows (again using USA as an example, you have all-day marathons of either Law & Order: SVU [one of my favorite shows] or the original NCIS, or sometimes NCIS: Los Angeles; or what WGN America is currently doing--all-day marathons of In the Heat of Night or Walker, Texas Ranger). It seemed that back in the day (let's say pre-2000 or so, or before the creation of DBS and digital cable), you had less channels, but yet more variety of programming; you would kinda think that with the expansion of the cable/satellite TV universe, there would be more variety, but it doesn't always seem to be the case.

 

I'm currently without DirecTV, and in fact, my contract with them just expired last week...I told my wife months ago that I had no intentions to re-new, not because I dislike DTV (their customer service has always been courteous and professional, and they have pretty much every channel I like), but because I didn't want to be stuck on another contract (although now, they offer month-to-month committments). I'm especially tempted to go with Time Warner Cable for their internet and cable TV package deal (right now, they have their 200-channel package and Extreme internet for $90 a month, before taxes and equipment fees). At least with them, TWC supports more TV Everywhere apps than DTV, and their own live TV app is available on many popular streaming devices (Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Roku). As of right now, I have some free cable channels coming through the wire (minus the locals), Hulu Plus, and Netflix, and a few other streaming video apps...quite honestly, I don't miss cable all that much, except some live local sports and news. I dunno...maybe I'll get cable/satellite if things get too boring.

[stevieboy247 42]

I also thought G4 was a decent channel during the days when it was dedicated to the gaming industry. Every single week I would watch reruns of 'Starcade' (not to be confused with the former wrestling pay-per-view Starrcade) as well as the other gaming shows that they used to have.

 

Then came the late-2000's, when G4 became an male-oriented entertainment channel similar to Spike TV. During that time, even though I would watch Attack of the Show, I only tuned in less frequently. I was not surprised to notice that NBCUniversal killed off the channel, but I'm pretty sure it was because of low ratings and not too many people watching. I guess that's what happens when you try to compete with MTV and Spike TV.

[ToriElectra 291]

Yeah, I used to like G4 when it had Cheat!; Code Monkeys was pretty good too, it was on Netflix, but they took it off recently.

[LoadStar 363]

I wish there was a way that "narrow-cast" channels could find a way to make the financials work that doesn't mean broadening the scope of the channel to the point that the channel is unrecognizable. (By narrow-cast, I mean channels whose theme is deliberately niche; examples would be the TechTV, the original format for Bravo, the original format for A&E, etc.)

[DanielMaron 5]

 

Back several years ago, not long after Disney acquired ABC Family from Fox (remember FOX Family), they contemplated changing the name to "XYZ." this was cancelled because they found out that buried in the contract that sold the original "Family Channel" and before that "CBN Cable" later "CBN Family" to Fox by Pat Robertson, was a cluase that the name of the channel would have to have the word "Family" in it in perpitiuity. Also, the 700 Club has to be broadcast 2 hours per day, that is why it still comes on there, and the reason that they can't change the name of the channel, well, they can but, it will have to have "Family" in it.

 

this is perfectly discussed from Disney's view when they bought ABC Family in the book "Disney War". It was worth the read in my opinion if you enjoy that behind the scenes stuff.