8.5.20 Bee-otches of the Day: cable channels that change format

Bee-otch of the Day honors are awarded Monday through Thursday; Bee-otch of the Week is awarded Sunday morning on Chuck69.com.

 

Name: various
Age: various
Occupation: supposed entertainers of the public
Last Seen: various
Bee-otched For: thinking a change can do them good

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This past weekend, MTV had a big birthday. 

The iconic cable channel turned 39. When it was launched, they aired something called "music videos". 'Memba those?

So how did MTV celebrate their 39th year in business? Simple: they showed a marathon of videos of another kind in the form of their hit show Ridiculousness. Now, I've always loved that program. Yes, it's funny and at times, shocking. Same with the videos MTV showed in its first several years on the air. 

So, what went wrong? Simple: MTV found out that reality shows and the other crap they produced had a larger audience. I remembered as a teen staying up on a school night to watch 120 Minutes only to have it pre-empted by a fucking Real World marathon. As a teen, I never related to that show and all it taught me was that roommates suck. Maybe that's why I prefer to live alone. 

But, it's the truth: shitty reality TV will always out-rate obscure indie rock any day of the week. Maybe that's why 120 would eventually meet its demise. But, considering its weird time slot, 120 continued to be a cult favorite with a small, yet loyal fan base.

Cable TV has been around longer than most people think: since the late 1940s. As a matter of fact, Petoskey was one of the very first cities in Michigan to have cable TV. Cable was simply used to receive more channels and to improve signal quality on some of the local channels. In Petoskey's case, northern Michigan only had two TV stations in the 1950s: CBS WWTV Cadillac (formerly on Channel 13) and NBC WPBN-7. Both shoehorned and few shows from ABC here and there. Instead of regular cable channels, people got out-of-town stations like Grand Rapids' WZZM-13 and virtually all stations out of Green Bay. 

Of course, the 70s and 80s gave us the rise of channels exclusive to cable. Many people from that era might remember the early days of HBO, ESPN, CNN and a small children's channel called Pinwheel, which evolved into Nickelodeon. There was a young broadcast mogul from Atlanta named Ted Turner who took a ginormous risk by beaming his tiny independent TV station in Atlanta, WTBS onto many cable systems in America in 1976. Eventually, he bought the Atlanta Braves, started CNN, bought MGM's extensive film library, started several more cable channels and so on. Eventually, he sold his empire to Time Warner in the 90s for $7 billion. He's still worth about $2 billion. 

Other superstations followed Turner's lead, like Chicago's WGN. Like Turner, WGN's parent, The Tribune Company, bought the Chicago Cubs. Too bad they sucked under their ownership unlike the Braves. New York's WWOR, Boston's WSBK and Los Angeles' KTLA had similar offerings in regards to cable and satellite. 

Thirty to forty years later, cable has definitely changed. True, ESPN is still showing sports, Nickelodeon is still spoiling kids (and yes, I'm giddy that Comedy Central is bringing back Ren and Stimpy sans pedo creator John Kricfalusi) and Lifetime is causing women to buy truckloads of Kleenex. However, cable purists shake their heads at times knowing that the cable networks they grew up with maintain their branding despite changing their programming. 

For example: AMC. Originally, it stood for "American Movie Classics". Primarily, they showed old-timey films from before 1980 or so. True, they still show movies, but they're mainly from the 80s and later. A&E stood for "Arts and Entertainment" and up until recently, they were the home of Live P.D., which was like Cops, but it was live. It was entertaining, but watching a cop perform a field sobriety test isn't quite on par with something like Biography. 

Some even changed their branding altogether. Remember TNN? It was The Nashville Network. It was even owned by the Grand Ole Opry's owners, Gaylord Entertainment. Well, Gaylord sold TNN (and CMT) to CBS. CBS then realized that even though their ratings were good, their demographics were old. So, TNN started adding some non-country-related shows and eventually, CMT took their slack. TNN became "The National Network" and then Spike TV, a channel devoted to men. Now, it's The Paramount Network, which shows sitcoms, shows like Bar Rescue and movies. When it was launched, I saw a promo where they claimed that they were going to show mainly films from Paramount's vault. However, I see that they're showing some Rocky movies, all from MGM. Kinda like going to an A&W Root Beer stand and getting a Coke, don't you think?

And yes, I gotta touch on BBC America. Years ago, I used to watch this channel here and there. Hell, they even showed old Benny Hill repeats at one time! Now, it seems that they air endless marathons of Star Trek: The Next Generation and movies like "Roadhouse". Apparently, they still show BBC staples like Doctor Who and Monty Python's Flying Circus, but in the wee hours of the morning. 

You know, this is why cable is dying and there's an uprising in regard to streaming services like Netflix and Disney+. Hell, even NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS have gotten into the act with free services like Peacock and PlutoTV respectively. And yes, this guy. 

The point is, is that it's pure sacrilege when you say that you're a rock station and your playlist is all country. But, that's cable. MTV still had the "Music Television" liner for years until they chopped off part of their logo a few years ago. Granted, MTV does have picked up the slack music video-wise, like MTV Classic and MTVU. But for the main MTV to replace videos with Jersey Shore crap makes me proud that there's millions of channels to choose from.

But still, Bruce Springsteen had that one song called "57 Channels And Nothing On".

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