“Niche” Cable Nets: Confusing “Niche” with “Dumb Niche”

I usually like the Journal’s “Small Screen” column from Joe Flint, but today’s seems a bit off-base. The thesis is that formerly niche cable networks are selling their souls for a more mainstream audience. The article’s corollary is that consolidation of their parent companies is the reason.

The cable-television industry, after years of trying to lure viewers with niche channels, now is moving squarely in the opposite direction. Throughout the business, once-narrowly defined networks are being reformatted to attract what advertisers say they want: bigger, younger audiences. As more channels pursue the same viewers, the end result is often a homogenization of programming that serves neither the viewer nor the advertiser.

I think it’s subtler — or maybe simpler — than that. Flint doesn’t talk much about the truly successful cable nets. That would be ESPN, Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central. They stayed true to their audiences, if not their original programming diet. (Flint does admit that SciFi, Food Network, and Home & Garden are remaining “pure.”)

I think what’s happening is that the networks that had lousy niches are broadening: the story tabs G4, Outdoor Life Network, The Learning Channel, A&E, and Bravo. (For some reason, he picks on Discovery, too, which programs pretty much the way it always has — as Flint notes — and, oops, is successful.) Oh, and Lifetime. Yeah, “women,” that’s a “niche.” Take a look at the others: 24 hours of videogame content? hunting? education? pretentious but still middlebrow artsy?

Yeah, advertisers would line up for those “audiences.”

As to the corollary, well, there’s just no consistency in the argument. Both the successful nets and the formerly-niche-but-now-homogenized networks are all owned by the same group of conglomerates. In fact, some of the changed strategies coincided with ownership changes.

There’s no trend in this trend analysis.