| What niche channels ever survive?
Sci-Fi: Began as a channel showing sci-fi. It gradually got more and more watered down until its low point, when they added wrestling. Now, it's turned into the channel showing junk about ghosts and other stupid crap, along with wrestling. And I'm not even going to type that abomination of a name it's been given.
TV Land: Began as a great classic TV channel and stayed that way for maybe a year. Now it's like a bad 24-hour version of Nick at Nite without cool stuff like SNICK.
MTV/MTV2/VH-1: Those channels that used to show music. 'Nuff said.
Cartoon Network: Used to show everything from Looney Toons to Thundarr the Barbarian to anime to Dexter's Laboratory. It still shows animation, but most of the good stuff is gone. Where? Oh yeah, over to Boomerang, their new niche channel.
ESPN Classic: This one is still mostly classic sports, but now live events are spilling over onto it. How long until it becomes ESPN 3?
Sure, there are niche channels, but they only last for a short time. Then, the execs start messing with them to "broaden their appeal" until they're just mediocre general-entertainment channels with a slight programming slant. |
| Many channels you don't think of as niche now would become so. A lot of people would only buy a handful of channels if they had the choice.
If cable companies and content providers want to do this then fine, but the heavy hand of government needs to stay out! |
