Networks can’t produce quality programming (non-reality) unless they’ve got a decent slice of the pie. Too many channels means that there are too many slices of the pie, thus lower viewers for everyone. And viewers are ticked off with the amount of commercials.

I know I’m showing my age but I remember when the broadcast networks didn’t air anything in the middle of the night but just during certain hours. They only had so much original programming and they didn’t have enough of an audience to do otherwise. If you tune into cable in the middle of the night, you don’t get much real programming even now. It seems like half the stuff airing on cable and a large chunk off-hours on broadcast is nothing but infomercials. And that DISGUSTS me to be paying for cable service that is airing infomercials disguised as regular programming.

A channel line up used to mean something when you had to physically get out of the chair to manually turn the channel on the TV set. Now with remotes, it’s not very likely that people are too lazy to flip to another channel from their seat when the program they’re watching ends (or during commercial breaks).

If you go back and watch some old DVDs from the 50s/early 60s they had 8 minutes of commercials per hour for primetime compared to 18 minutes per hour for primetime today. 10 more minutes of commercials has been added per hour.

I don’t think that I’m alone in that I’d rather pay or rent the TV series DVD and watch it commercial free than bother watching it when it originally airs with commercials. I rarely watch live TV anymore. I either watch DVDs or record the show and watch it later skipping through the commercials. If I do watch live, then when a commercial comes on I change the channel to another and flip back when the show is back on. I don’t really care if I miss something because I refuse to watch all those commercials.

Since the commercials are what’s paying for most TV, I don’t see it being able to be sustained in its current format. I’m guessing that in the future people will either have to watch their shows online via a video stream where they can’t cut out the commercials or pay a fee to watch their show commercial free.

In my opinion, networks as we know them will go away. People could pay a fee to access various video libraries and pick and choose what shows they want to watch and what episodes. That would definitely work for any show that would essentially be a rerun.

I was talking about how AMC radically changed formats virtually overnight about ten years ago (late 90s? early 2000s?).

They’ve moved away from THAT format (the same 80s movies everyone, including your local independent station, was showing) in the years since. Now they’ve settled somewhere in-between; more original programming, and a film library that’s a fair bit more balanced old/newer than that initial format swap.

Actually, AMC went to the top twenty-five cable networks in a hurry, as the Media Life Magazine 2009 2Q charts show for both prime time and total day. Somehow those “same old” movies get a much bigger audience than the – what would you call them? – “not same old” movies.

I agree with a poster early in this thread who said that plenty of niche networks exist on digital tiers for slivers of the audience. But it’s always fun to complain about cable outlets “abandoning” their audiences. Makes ‘em sound like runaway parents dumping babies on doorsteps. Meanwhile, those networks pick up more viewers, who apparently don’t feel so abandoned.

Sort of like AMC used to be, until they changed format (adding commercials, losing the host, and switching over from “American Movie Classics” to the same movies that every other channel was airing) some years back – ten years maybe?. It went to hell in a hurry.

I suspect actually it’s more “their intent to shift away from their science fiction roots towards more general interest fare, especially fantasy and paranormal programming.”

The problem with Sci-fi is that there really isn’t that much actual science fiction on it. The network is named after a small part of the genres that the network wants to cover.

I wouldn’t assume that just because in the US, The X-Files and Fringe are considered “Science Fiction” and are on the same DVD shelves as “The Omen” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” that this somehow means that any of these fairly described by the science fiction moniker, or that these don’t have a general audience. Part of the reason why there have been a thousand vampire TV shows since Buffy is because the genre is more “general interest” than speculation on the social affects of certain hypothetical but possible technologies, or images of the future.

I don’t expect Syfy to change their programming mix at all. I think their content is already, for the most part, a mix aimed at general audiences. I think the name change reflects both the fact that they are having trademark issues, and that they feel that people who would be happy watching much of their content aren’t going to even look for that content on a network named for science fiction.

As for the constant debate over ‘a la carte’ cable, I just don’t think it would turn out as well as people think. Even if I whittled down my cable options to 5 channels (let’s say FX, AMC, Food Network, Bravo and ESPN) I doubt I would come out (much) ahead costwise – the cable companies aren’t going to be giving individual channels away for pennies, and you’ll still have to pay some sort of cable service fees. And even there, I’m only interested in most of those networks when the shows I like (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Top Chef, etc.) are on. I doubt the cable companies would let you turn channels off and on at will, and if they did they’d find a way to charge a premium for it.

Building on what others have said, a la carte programming is pointless when pretty much everything ends up available through other means (DVDs, streaming, downloads) if you’re willing to wait a few months.

Funny that all these channels are trying to go more mainstream at the same time that the 3 cable news channels (Fox, CNN and MSNBC) are throwing out the concept of reporting actual news, by instead trying to attract a rabid niche.

As for me, I will never subscribe to the wasteland called cable tv until they give me an a la carte option. The only stuff left I like to watch is either on Hulu or some shows that only get shown at odd hours, so I DVR them.

What I find odd is that the cable TV carriers pay the cable channels and it isn’t the other way around. The channels need the carriers more than the carriers need the channels. In communities, there is only one cable TV carrier. As for programming, there are usually at least two channels going doing the same theme (for example, Lifetime, Oxygen, and WE). If I was a cable TV carrier, I wouldn’t pay but put up for bid spots in the basic channel package after laying down some ground rules. “One channel devoted to women, one channel devoted to…” I don’t really see any must-have channels aside (for me) the History Channel … and even that less than I used to feel due to the crappy non-History reality shows they now run during prime time (Ice Road Truckers, Ax Men, etc.).

although there is a space where the niche rules – the sports channels like MLB Network, NFL network, NBA Network and NHL network.

As of now, there really isn’t much on cable that I would pay anything for:

TNT

Lifetime (I don’t like it since Dawn Ostroff cancelled the five shows that my wife and I loved to watch together, and it is “television for women (who enjoy being emotionally and sexually abused by cable television executives)” – but it would be cheaper to have this than a divorce…)

TCM (and even that’s going a bit downhill…)

…

…

…I can’t think of any other channel that I would pay even .02 cents per decade for…except for the new interactive network, “Just Shoot Me – I Work For The Cable Company!”

Really though, it’s only natural for channels to evolve. More niche channels will pop up as the older cable channels become more broad spectrum. I personally don’t have a problem with it. Although I would like to get Sundance and IFC from my basic cable…

oh wait, they’re showing poker now…darn!

I think the lesson here is that niche cable channels don’t last long, if you happen to see one now…it won’t be the way it is probably 8 years later.

The majority of cable channels have dumped their normal programming to run the usual suspects of movies. Think about how many times BET runs Matrix or CMT runs non-country movies. MTV doesn’t care about music anymore. They’re all turning into USA networks.

The Soap Opera channel has discovered the two things that get them ratings are Beverly Hills 90210 marathons and movies. They don’t see much of a future in rerunning Soap Operas. Think about how Headline News no longer gives us the world in 30 minutes around the clock.

Bravo’s change of programming can be blamed by NBC buying the channel back in 2002. Bravo Canada is not owned by NBC.

The niche programming is seen merely as a way to get on the cable carriage – afterward, you got to grab the eyeballs or you’re gone like Trio (which still hurts). The future of “niche” will be bleak and low budget when compared to the “USA Clones” that dominate the dial.

Discovery is harder to classify because they have so many different niche Discovery channels that air all the documentaries, etc. that the primary used to air. I love Dirty Jobs and Mythbusters, but they aren’t exactly the kind of thing Discovery was airing 10 years ago.

TVLand still mostly airs classic TV, but the prominence their reality shows like She’s Got the Look and Cougar are in line with this article. So they’re kind of in the middle on this.

David brought up MTV hits, but really, that only exists because MTV, the network created for music videos, stopped dealing with videos and music. VH1 is the same way.

A lot of people also get basic cable in a broadband internet bundle (like the comcast ‘triple play’) that’s often the raison d’etre behind their subscription in the first place. If and when (and it’s only a matter of when) there’s a competitve mixture of cost effective wireless services that don’t present consumer significant bandwith and upload speed issues, people are going to flee cable en masse–especially if the cost of a collection of Mad Men or Breaking Bad or Burn Notice episodes is cheaper on the Internet than the subscription fees Not that all of those people are all watching Hulu or Fancast yet, but they will be once it proves to be more cost effective. (Oddly enough, this could be salvation for the Big Four.)

CourtTV became TruTV – it’s basically all stupid criminals, COPS, high speed pursuits, etc…

History Channel – Still has some history documentaries (hard to find ones that aren’t reruns, though). It’s now started playing Tougher in Alaska, Ice Road Truckers, Ax Men, Gangland, etc… Now they may be good shows, but they don’t belong on a network that’s supposed to be the home of history programming.

Just thought I’d throw those out there.

More on topic, networks aren’t loosing their identities because of the lack of scripted programs.

Cable actually has more original scripted shows than ever, and they help define the networks. TBS is comedy, USA is characters, TNT is drama, etc. I don’t think any of that runs counter to the identities of those networks from 5 years ago. The scripted shows on AMC are actually new.

A&E, TLC and Bravo never really had scripted fiction shows (as opposed to documentary-type shows).

USA might be the only cable network w/multiple adult hits though.

oops!

Haha! I stand corrected!