On September 9th, Canadians subscribing to cable will get a free preview of Dusk, a new format for the specialty channel formerly known as Scream.  Scream was an excellent example of how networks used to believe specialty channels work: you can find a niche — the narrower the better — throw together a few low-budget original programs, and fill out the rest of the schedule with inexpensive films and syndicated programs.  It’s win-win — by going after a tiny fraction of the total TV audience, you ensure viewer loyalty: viewers who like horror know where to go to get it 24 hours a day, and the programming, because it’s mostly recycled, is cheap, so covering costs is easy.  The numbers and profits are small (which is to be expected in country with literally hundreds of channels), but the cost / revenue balance is favourable.

Scream was, as the name implies, a channel for horror buffs.  When it launched, it consistently showed classic horror movies like Hallowe’en and Hellraiser, and episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  Under the new format, Dusk is seeking a wider audience.

This is the same pattern we saw with the SciFi network in the US, originally a specialty channel that featured shows like Battlestar Galactica, but which is now SyFy, in order to not ostracise the non-sci-fi lovers out there.  The idiocy of this move should be immediately obvious to anyone: why would a channel devoted to science fiction want non-science-fiction-lovers watching, and how can they get them without losing the viewers they already have?  It’s clear the intention is to be able to air not only shows that appeal to niche markets, but to everyone in front of the set, thereby expanding viewership.  The issue, of course, is that niche channels are generally the only one of their type in the market (and in fact, the CRTC expressly prohibits the co-existence of two competing specialty channels of the same format) so they have a monopoly on that niche genre’s viewership — whereas channels going for a general audience compete with every other channel seeking a general audience.  With a hundred channels to choose from, a channel could not expect to get more than one percent of viewship, without a way of making its programming stand out somehow.

Another excellent example of a diluted brand is E! Canada.  E! was not legally designated a specialty channel (in Ontario, it was simply a rebranding of the formerly-independent CHCH, later ONtv, into an all-entertainment channel, riding the fugacious trend of celebrity worship; versions in Victoria, Kelowna, Montreal, and Red Deer had similar provenance — and a similar fate), but it was a de facto specialty channel network, since it targeted a niche market — namely, the celebrity news and gossip market.  When E!’s numbers started to decline, E! reverted back to its original positioning; as the wiki entry so eloquently puts it, “Global programs were sometimes sent ‘down’ to CH if two programs aired by Global begin to air simultaneously on separate U.S. networks, so Canwest could maximize its simultaneous substitution opportunities.”  This is how a channel branded as entertainment progamming (read: Hollywood celebrity worship) ended up showing pro golf tournaments.  Eventually all five channels were sold off, shut down, or bought out by station employees.

A brief aside about the concept of brand: as ad wizard David Olgilvy once said, “Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the marketplace.”  That is to say, every brand conveys the spirit of the intended user, and reflects back to the user the image of himself as he would like to be.  The stronger the brand, the stronger the identification, and the more loyalty your consumer will show you.  An excellent example of this is Apple’s Mac v. PC ads, in which they actually show two actors who are able to instantly telegraph not only Apple’s intended personality (young, hip, smart, savvy, and slightly sarcastic) but also the competitor’s (obtuse, old, stocky, and square).  Forget for a moment that John Hodgman has more hipster cred than Justin Long ever will: in terms of showing an identifiable brand, this campaign provides you with an actual human model for the archetype the consumer is intended to aspire to — and Apple’s fanboys are nothing if not loyal.  Clearly they must see themselves in Apple’s corporate “personality.”

Television channels, even more than computers, rely on creating a strong brand to attract and keep viewers.  Television is probably the easiest product ever created to market towards specific lifestyles, precisely because of the nature of the product: programming.   Who watches the types of shows you’re airing?  The answer to that question will cement your brand.  With niche specialty channels like SciFi, E! and Scream, the audiences are virtually built-in.  SciFi and E!, in particular, had such a strong content / audience-demographic correlation that advertising buys were very straightforward.

So what happened?  How did all three of these channels cease to exist?  The answer in each case is the same: dilution of brand.  Not content to target a niche market, the programming began to slip, choosing more and more programming of more general appeal.  Syfy, in specific, has announced plans to investigate the possibility of adding cooking and talk shows.  And Scream’s new brand, Dusk, is a much softer image: imagine the Twilight series as a specialty channel.  As Corus Media’s website puts it, “SCREAM TV will be changing to become DUSK and will feature an even more female-friendly line-up of programming.”

A pattern begins to emerge.  Specialty channels originally launched as niche brands targeting a narrow audience using cheaply obtained programming dilute their brands to reach a more general audience — and not just any audience, but a more female audience.  Male- or gender-neutral-oriented programming is pushed to the side as more stereotypically “female” programming slowly creeps further and further up the dial.  As a feminist, what perturbs me most about this is the insinuation that women don’t like generalised programming: to reach a female audience, one must feed them a steady diet of love triangles and talk shows.  Because let’s face it — it’s not really a female audience these channels are after, it’s a certain type of female audience.  Not all women watch TV, after all, but you’d never guess: TV programmers project television as an accurate mirror of the world.  It is in fact extremely warped: this mirror doesn’t reflect women with interests in business, the arts, science, or current affairs at all.

While this trend is disappointing to viewers who are slowly watching their favourite brands disappear, and are forced to look longer and harder for something to watch, it’s a natural consequence of TV’s shifting demographics in the first place.  To get an idea of who is watching TV (or who is supposed to be watching TV), look at the ads: who wants to buy what they’re selling?  For years, there have been two types of ads on TV: ads aimed at children (which form a small fraction of all ads, since kids have no money to spend) and ads aimed at young parents, in particular young mothers.  There are ads for home cleansers, yogurt that helps you poop, instant rice, affordable 4-door sedans, and Tylenol.  The tone of the ads is equally important: we are exposed over and over to the archetype of the Savvy White Woman, who knows just which products to buy and is happy to recommend them, occasionally counterposed with the Bumbling Emasculated Husband, who would be lost without his wife.  (Again, it would be convenient to blame networks for taking such a sexist approach to ad programming, but the sad fact is, young families are the people who spend the most money on advertised goods, and most purchases for home and children are made by women.  And the condescending tone of the ads themselves can only be blamed on ad agencies.)

In defense of the TV ad programmers, they go after the money: they program ads to the people watching … and it’s largely mothers with young kids who are watching (or more accurately, who are watching and then spending).  Daytime TV has always been exclusively the purview of women, but primetime viewers, which used to include male viewers with gender-neutral programming, has slipped as non-public TV viewership has shifted towards the 18-to-49 year old female demographic.  Watching TV is now, unbelievably, a feminine thing to do.  Male viewers, on the other hand, have left for other media, primarily video games and the Internet.

This all creates an unfortunate feedback loop.  TV caters more and more towards female viewers, meaning there’s less appealing programming on TV for male viewers, and male viewers drift to other media, and as a result, TV pitches advertising (and therefore programming) to the women who compose more and more of the audience.

This alone would be bad enough, but this is compounded by a short-sighted and frankly misogynist view of what women want.  Based on TV programmers’ decisions, there are no intellectual women — no women with an interest in hard science fiction, no women with an interest in nature documentaries, no women with an interest in current affairs.  The interests programmers do cater to: drama and culture.  In 2007 (the most recent year for which I can find data in toto), the top ten shows averaged over the year were: 1. American Idol (Wednesday edition), 2. American Idol (Tuesday edition), 3. Dancing With the Stars (Monday edition), 4. Dancing With the Stars (Tuesday edition), 5. Sunday Night Football, 6. CSI, 7. (tie:) Grey’s Anatomy / Samantha Who, 9. House, 10. CSI: Miami.

There are one male-oriented and three gender-neutral shows on that list: football, and the two CSIs and House, respectively.  The rest are distinctly estrogen-loaded.  Contrast this with the top ten most pirated shows of 2007: (basically, shows that appeal to the largest audience of people who don’t watch TV, but rather spend their time in front of a computer): 1. Heroes, 2. Top Gear, 3. Battlestar Galactica, 4. Lost, 5. Prison Break, 6. Desperate Housewives, 7. 24, 8. Family Guy, 9. Dexter, 10. Scrubs.  By my count, this list contains one female-oriented show, three gender-neutral shows (that’s being generous), and six male-oriented shows.

There are three striking things about these lists.  The first is obviously that shows watched online are much more heavily male-skewed than shows watched on the TV set.  So we can conclude there is a demand for male-friendly shows — just not necessarily a demand for them on TV.  Secondly, not one of these shows appears on both lists.  It’s as if they were two completely different media — and they are, in terms of delivery, but all 20 of these shows were produced for television; webcast and piracy are marginal revenue streams at best and totally unintended at worst.  In reality, the disparity is due to two totally different audiences, made up of two totally different demographics.

Another striking difference is the formats of the shows involved: the TV list contains mainly shows that are self-contained, as opposed to serial.  These shows are also (dare I say it?) pretty low-concept.  The pirated shows are not only higher-concept, but are also mainly serials (seven, by my count).

To bring this back to my original point: it’s not just that TV is getting more female-oriented, it’s also getting lower-concept, and it’s getting blander.  There is an audience for more male-friendly shows, higher-concept shows, and serials, but something about the delivery system of television is driving the audience for those shows away.  If this trend continues, then ironically, at some point, there will be nobody left watching TV but younger women — and the entire medium will consist of niche programming.  The difficulty in monetising webcasting is the only remaining barrier to the fulfillment of this trend.

It’s no secret that television has been struggling for years to keep viewers, but I can’t help but wonder if this latest manoeuver — the homogenisation of all specialty channels into a single dumbed-down female-friendly multi-channelverse — isn’t a little short-sighted.  To broaden every channel to include cooking and talk shows, to live by the truism that you can’t lose money underestimating the public, and to pair that with Eleanor Roosevelt’s axiom about small minds — it reverses the belief that you have to start with quality programming and the audience will come.  In fact, it seems predicated on the belief that the medium is good for nothing but hawking housewares to young women with families.  If the programming continues to follow the advertising, TV can only ensure its own irrelevance.  

Please see the comments below for more on why TV programming skews towards female-friendly and low-concept shows; I would like to stress that these two epiphenomena are totally unrelated to one another!