Post by CrystalPost by Terrence Clayhttps://www.radiodiscussions.com/threads/channel-drift.751516/
What was the reason(s) for a channel such as MTV or SyFy to drift
away from its original channel model and direction?
Initial concepts for both were too niche. MTV's additional problem was
time spent watching; people would tune in for a song or two then leave.
The demos weren't great either; too many kids and teens, and largely
only white kids and teens at that -- diversity was unknown there until
Michael Jackson became the network's Jackie Robinson, so to speak.
Parroting the standard libel. MTV was playing black and multiracial
artists long before Michael Jackson was an issue (it even played Prince
before it did Jackson). The network was designed to be essentially a
new wave/alternative rock station, not to play every style of music--it
wasn't playing country artists either and no one was demanding Kenny
Rogers (or Charley Pride) videos. The Jackson issue came up only after
MTV had started to prove itself as a hitmaker in the genres it was
playing and some black artists that it wasn't (and who didn't even have
videos to play) complained; then as now, scream "racist" and people
fold rather than stand by their positions. A key part of what drove the
format decision had nothing to do with race or even music styles, but
simply the lack of material available to show. Even BET (Black
Entertainment Television), which was on air nearly two years before MTV,
had problems finding videos to play. Jackson had to finance his music
videos himself since his record company wouldn't. Meantime MTV
initially had to rely largely on European videos, and that did include
two-tone and ska bands like The Specials, along with a raft of synthpop
bands, and those set the musical tone for the network, into which disco,
funk and slow jams didn't fit, and even with the huge success that
Jackson had once his videos entered rotation, that didn't mean MTV was
going to completely ignore its core format and start playing every black
artist for whom they got a tape. (For that matter, there were plenty of
white artists who couldn't get played; there was one major progressive
rock group whom I got MTV to air interviews with when they toured but
couldn't get their music videos on air since they didn't sound like the
rest of what the network was playing.) However, even before Jackson
they had plenty of non-white viewers, and not only were they not tuning
away after a couple of songs, they would leave the channel on for hours.
The network was specifically aimed at teens, so having them as viewers
wasn't a problem; it wasn't until four years later that they introduced
VH-1 as a music network for an older demographic.) The serious program
drift didn't start until the 1990s when early efforts to come up with
non-music programming that would still hold the existing audience as a
short break rom the videos, such as "Remote Control" and "The Real
World" began to expand and overtake the music programming, short- and
long-form alike, and over the next three decades essentially push it out
completely.
Post by CrystalAs for SyFy (formerly SciFi), science fiction is a divisive genre to
begin with and it would be nearly impossible to program a channel that
would please SF fans (Oh, and "serious" science fiction fans NEVER call
the genre "sci-fi.") who want content with deep social messaging and
those who just want a terrifying zombie story.
Never mind that at one point it was being run by someone who didn't
know or even like SF/sci-fi/whatever. Also, SciFi was initially relying
on libraries of existing programming, not (until much later) producing
its own material, and using a broad definition of what constituted
Sci-Fi (which didn't include "hard" SF, of which little exists). No one
expects a network to make everyone happy all the time, and some people
you can't please at all. Nonetheless it's one thing to say that SyFy
has drifted off-message if you don't think "Resident Alien" meets your
definition of the genre, it's another when the channel is being used
just to repurpose shows made for its USA Network parent that are clearly
not SF (e.g. Monk) or falls totally off the beam with Monday Night
Wrestling (although some might say that qualifies as science fiction).
Post by CrystalThe answer for both networks (as it was for History Channel, CMT, A&E,
etc.) was to dumb down and go for middle-brow to low-brow chewing gum
for the eyeballs of the masses.
Regrettably, perhaps, for all networks it has come down to just numbers
of eyeballs. When the basic cable networks were originally being
developed (and I was heavily involved in this 40 years ago), one key
guiding element was the concept of niche programming, or narrowcasting
(as opposed to broadcasting), with the idea that you'd have smaller
audiences but more focused ones who would be more receptive to ads
targeted to them, and it was an uphill sell to many of the advertisers
and agencies for whom it had always been a pure numbers game in TV and
radio. It worked for some, but over time, many networks couldn't
sustain their original concepts with the audiences and advertisers they
drew and ended up either merging with other ones in similar straits or
simply altering their content to reach a larger, less selective mass, if
they didn't fold altogether. Ironically there are many more networks
now than there were then, but even if they have a supposed focus it's a
lot broader and you still end up with many of them just endlessly
running the same raft of off-network shows (Law & Order and its
spinoffs, NCIS, Criminal Minds, etc), often the same shows opposite each
other.