Who Killed The Niche Cable Network? Part One

Good evening to you all,

After being put through the educational wringer for five days, I'm primed and ready for some hardcore, industrial trash-compactor thinking. And, to get you in the same mood, how about a little thinking exercise?

Here's your task: name one type of show (like a cooking show, reality show, police procedural, or drama) that is only on one cable network, you can't find it anywhere else. I'll give you a second. Step away from your monitor and ponder. I'll be here.

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Welcome back!

If my instincts are right, you couldn't turn up anything. You're not stupid. My blog readers are very deep thinkers. The problem here is that the concept of the specialty cable network is very much dead. And it didn't die naturally. Somebody killed it in cold blood. The first victim was MTV.

MTV stands for Music Television. Pretty simple idea: TV about music, which includes, by my definition, singing competitions, documentaries about musicians, and of course, music videos. I just looked at twelve hours worth of MTV listings (7pm on 8/26 - 7am on 8/27) and I didn't find a single music related program. All of them were reality shows. I see a bit of a problem there.

It's apparent that MTV did this because shows like Survivor and The Real World were becoming hits. The problem is that if you keep copying old hits, what's going to happen when people get tired of the new thing? Who'll come up with the new new thing?

The BIGGER problem, consequently, is this. If other networks start copying off of you, and other networks copy off of networks that are copies of you, and, in turn, other networks copy off of those, what's stopping us from having a whole TV with 274 channels that are homogenized, cookie-cutter clones of the other 273? The scary answer to that question is nothing. Think about it.

You're president of XYZ Network. If 123 Network, your competitor, is airing a genre of programming, such as reality, and whooping you in thw ratings, and you had to greenlight a show, would you go with a reality show similar in format to 123's reality show, or a risky sci-fi drama?

As a logical buisiness move, you'd go with the first option. In part two Sunday, I'll show you the other side of the coin, and why, in making the "logical" desicion, you would've shot yourself in the foot. And the best way to illustrate that is to put another network under the microscope.

See you then!

Tomato