[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Sep 3 2003, 11:26 AM\']Hmmm....TVLand just started airing \"Mr Ed\" this week.
I think that's what has a lot of us confused - that a channel like TVLand can air a lot of old shows all the time, but a channel like GSN has to rely on the more recent stuff.
It's been mentioned that GSN averages around a 0.6 or 0.7 for many of its shows. Does anyone know what TVLand averages?[/quote]
This is
a list of the 25 top-rated ad-supported basic cable channels as of last March. TV Land is in the top 25 in prime time with over 600,000 viewers, but doesn't place in the top 25 on a day-long average. GSN isn't in either list.
The perceived difference between TV Land and GSN is that TV Land is branded as a vintage TV channel and nothing else. The audience tunes to TV Land expecting to see vintage TV and (more or less) gets it. (The arguments can reign over what is \"vintage\" or \"classic,\" especially as the initial audience gets older and out of the desirable demos, but if \"classic TV\" can be considered not what's rerun at the dinner hour and late at night on broadcast stations and the big cable channels, TV Land fits the bill.)
On the other hand, GSN has never been branded as a \"classic\" game show channel--simply as a game show channel (or a channel about gaming and games featuring game shows). People tune into GSN (or are expected to tune into GSN) expecting game shows in general, not necessarily vintage game shows. Due to financial constraints, of course, the early years were almost entirely vintage programming, but simply by the presence of the \"Prime Games\" interstitials, there was already evidence that the channel was not to be just old shows--and when the household levels were considered high enough to make original programming feasible (which personally I still believe that 1998 was way too soon to jump in, since GSN had barely cracked the 15 million home mark), they started commissioning said original programming.
The difference is that TV Land (launched by Rich Cronin) has always known exactly what it wants to be and has been able to stick to it with minimal interference from Viacom suits (even after Mel \"Higher Profit Margins Now!\" Karmazin was put in charge). GSN seems to have never really had a clear vision of what it wants to be, mostly because Sony suits have seemed to think totally in the short-term how-can-we-get-young-demos instead of the long-term. I think Rich Cronin and Bob Boden do have a certain vision of what GSN is and were able to begin to execute it with minimal meddling from Sony and Liberty--and then we come upon the decision for the video game block, which still smacks to me as nothing more but clueless execs from either Sony or Liberty whining about not getting young demos and not holding on to that 1.5 million viewers who watched the Michael Larsen doc--and Rich and Bob doing this simply to shut them up, knowing damn well that it doesn't fit GSN's profile and it's not going to work. But that's business.
If it's any comfort, it does seem that the diehards of other niche entertainment channels have the same complaint--and unless the whole business model of television changes, the complaints will be around for years to come.
