A cable TV channel that has a unique feature — some might say a monkey on its back — will soon be put up for sale, with its owner having already hired an investment bank to shop the channel, the New York Post reports.
The channel is TV Guide Network, which has struggled to become known for programming beyond the channel listings scroll that tends to dominate the screen. Owner Lionsgate Entertainment is talking with private equity companies about buying the network, the story reports.
Lionsgate owns the linear network, TVGuide.com and the brand name TV Guide with JP Morgan’s One Equity Partners, while TV Guide magazine is owned by Open Gate Capital, the story notes.
The cable network lost 20% of its audience last year, the piece points out. It has been increasing original productions and has plans for reality shows with TV themes, but it has been hard for the network to gain a new identity given that it has distribution contracts that require it to keep the scrolling TV listings, the story says.
The story reports: “The owners have been phasing out that requirement, with two-thirds of its 80 million homes now seeing a full TV screen without the channel guide. The aim is to have 80 percent of customers seeing a regular show.”
They need to look at who they are targeting with what they are airing. Their programming is all over the place. I love their reruns of women’s sitcoms. It give’s us a chance to see shows that were great but were not successful in their original runs.
BUT many of their “reality” style programs are poorly produced and not of my interest to most people.
Since it is TV Guide Network maybe they need to look at being a true rival to TV Land. Look at programming in blocks based on decades and running the best of the series from those eras. Give us a network that celebrates our past and lets us share our history with our children.
You don’t need the TV Guide network to share your history with your kids. There’s Retro TV, Me TV, Antenna TV and others that carry all of those old shows. If you don’t get those through your cable or satellite, try getting an antenna. Most of the programming on the above networks are carried over the air on TV stations .2 and .3 digital sideband stations.
I’d like to see TV Guide channel become what TV Land promised to be at one point and that’s your destination for all things television. Not just a reruns channel but one that really dives into the past, present & future of television as a medium. Maybe run those events from the Paley Center live and let the viewing audience get involved. Running TV from around the world would also be something, like examples from the other countries that have versions of LAW & ORDER (BBC America runs the recent UK version but it would be great to see versions like the one produced in Russia). A destination for the real TV geek.