After reading the thread about the story on Nostradamus on the History Channel, I was reminded of something I wanted to ask before. Of all the named and themed cable channels, which ones are still most faithful to their original name and programming and which are the least faithful?
My vote for most faithful: The Food Network. I would say that almost 100 percent of the shows on this network have something to do with food, the preparation of food, the history of food, the making of food, where you can get food, food as entertainment. There is not one show I can think of on the Food Network that is not about food, unless you count the infomercials that are shown late at night. And it’s not called the “cooking” network, so it does not have to be all about cooking, it’s called the “Food” network, so as far as I am concerned, it’s definitely the most faithful to its name.
Least faithful: So many to choose. But I suppose MTV and VH1. Which, supposedly, years ago the “M” stood for music and the “VH” stood for Video Hits. Now, respectively, they are the forced drama and countdown of pop culture references channels.
QVC. I’ve never seen a non-selling a bunch of stuff segment on this station, ever.
HGTV. I’ve become sadly addicted to home improvement, decorating, gardening, house hunting and the like. I’d say just about their entire lineup falls under the stated main focus of the channel.
less faithful, Court TV. A large chunk of their shows deal with areas of the justice system, but most have little to do with court.
Is A&E still artsy and entertainment-y? Lately, all I see is “Sopranos” reruns and the occasional movie. Are they still doing biography? It just used to be such a “classy” channel. Doesn’t seem that way anymore.
Most would be Logo and here!, the two gay-themed networks which have gay content in all of their programming to date.
Least, besides the two you’ve mentioned, probably TLC. Used to stand for The Learning Channel, now it stands for home improvement shows and fashion tips. I suppose a case could be made that we’re learning about construction or fashion by watching, but…no.
Actually, probably worse than even MTV is Bravo. Used to be a premium channel like HBO specializing in arthouse films and “culture” programming. Now it’s Top Chef, Kathy Griffin, Queer Eye (for another day at least, series finale tomorrow) and reality shows about personal trainers. Not that I didn’t watch and enjoy Queer Eye and Kathy Griffin and Celebrity Poker Showdown, but I long for the days when a station would carry things like Marlene Dietrich in concert. IFC (which at some point I believe owned Bravo) and Sundance sort of pick up some of that slack, but there was an eclecticism to Bravo back in the late 80s-early 90s when I first starting seeing it that I sorely miss.
A&E used to have several programs that would show up in my list of things to watch. I bet it’s a year now since I’ve had it on at all. All mafia all the time. Blech.
BBC4 in the UK/Ireland has programmes on all sorts of topic, the main similarity they all share is that they’re mainly pitched at the middle-to-high brow end of the spectrum. There are history programmes, music, culture, arts, etc. along with some drama.
Two more “mosts”: The Weather Channel and ESPN (and ESPN2 and ESPN Classic).
I’ve really come to appreciate ESPN, and wish they’d continue to metastasize more channels up to and including the sadly hypothetical ESPN8 (“The Ocho”), from Dodgeball, The Movie.
“If it’s practically a sport, you’ll find it on ‘the Ocho’!”
Though AMC is falling through the basement, too. I’ll admit the first time I did a WTF moment seeing what they were showing, it was for the 80’s teen flick My Bodyguard which was a pretty serious and well-done film. You could make an argument it was a classic. But, lately they’ve shown things like Ahnold’s Commando. And worse films!
So, here’s a question based on the responses so far: Since it seems like most themed channels wind up attempting to appeal to the least-common denominator and become a hodge-podge of offerings, should new networks even attempt a theme anymore? I guess the Spike channel has enough of a general theme to be able to include various things male related. But are specific channels like “The History Channel” an endangered species?
It does seem like a pretentious kind of conceit, to give your channel some sort of highfalutin’ name suggesting specific types of content, and then not to deliver on said content, providing a LCD mishmash instead. I remember all the articles written when cable really started taking off in the early mid 80’s, about how we would get all these “specialty” channels catering to every whim no matter how obscure or esoteric, precisely because the “block” channel schemes being sold by the cable companies would allow less “popular” channels to be viable along with the more mainstream ones. Fast forward to today and we just have a huge undifferentiated mass, where the Die Hard movies can be and are shown on dozens of different channels which at first glance appear to have very little in common.