John’s Law of Cable Networks: how The Furniture Channel becomes TFC

Good read on Quartz…

Discovery’s shift away from fact-based programming is part of the much larger trend of American cable channels losing their identities. For a while, it seemed like Discovery was holding onto its identity longer than most other cable channels, but the mounting backlash to recent Shark Weeks from the scientific community has made it clear—the channel’s devolution has really been happening for years right before our eyes. It’s unfortunate, but it’s understandable from a business perspective. Fake documentaries about fake mafias are the kinds of shows that Americans like to watch these days. Last year, Discovery delivered its best ratings since 2001.

via The sad devolution of Discovery Channel – Quartz.

Which leads us to John’s Law Of Cable Networks.  Every cable channel eventually strays from the core and rebrands.

Here’s how it goes.  You and I start The Furniture Channel.  All Furniture All the Time.  Hardcore furniture shows for furniture fans.

Sometime in year three we find our breakout star.  He’s an over the top personality who hosts Extreme Furniture on TFC.  Notice we’ve started working “TFC” into the branding.

Somewhere along the way we buy the rights to Battlestar Galactica and start mixing that in at 11pm.  (Why, I don’t know, but there’s seems to be one of those on every channel – like BBCA showing Star Trek TNG because I guess Patrick Stewart is British playing a Frenchman.)

And what do you know, Galactica starts doing better than the furniture shows.  So TFC adds reruns of the X-Files.

And that does well.  So let’s show two X-Files back to back.  Maybe on Tuesday we should just run three episodes of Galactica in prime time.

Eventually TFC drops all the furniture shows and starts developing an original science-fiction series.

Does it make cable people bad/stupid/evil?  Nope.  The name of the game is to get viewers.   I just laugh because it keeps happening over and over from The Nashville Network to Court TV to the current version of History (I personally watch H2 often), and even CNN gets an eyebrow out of me these days.

American Movie Classics has done pretty well for itself, no?

I think I’m going to call some guys I know in LA and pitch The Furniture Channel.