Saw T.G offered on Netflix last week

 

Yes but Netflix is a season or two behind.

 

The idea behind dedicated niche channels is a good thing from a consumer perspective - we can focus on what we want. And it sorta worked well in the 1990'2 and early 2000's. But then the profiteering eventually took over and the business interests, because each channel is privately owned and has its own profit/loss metrics to meet, screwed it all up.

The Science Fiction Channel, rebadged SciFi Channel, rebadged now to sound like a venereal disease, SyFy, began airing WWE wrestling and other non-science fiction content.

BBC America airs stuff so ludicrous - like Star Trek TNG - oh, we Americans are not familiar with that British show.. we should watch that. Talk about not catering to the audience.

Speed channel lost more of its prime material to other networks, like the F1 rights being purchased by the NBC Sports startup. (and so far the coverage is less and more annoying .. .one day I'd like to add up the amount of critical race time a viewer misses in an F1 Grand Prix due to the commercial breaks. And just like NBC they occasionally don't show the event live but only tape delayed many hours after the event when you might already know the result... ala NBC's exclusive and crap Olympics coverage)


So as there was less 'focus, the niche channel was just another channel in the lineup but without the focused compelling content. Now its a wide span of channels all with similar mixes of general content and maybe, if you are lucky, a small amount of focus. So they cannot make money as no one watches anymore and they go away. Its the corporate worlds drive for general eyeballs that will drive all channels to mediocrity unfortunately.

 

@Minok, agreed with assessment. Here in Canada, they're proposing Cable companies to be mandated to offer per-channel pricing, as opposed to bundles that you're forced to buy even if you only like 1 out of the 20 channels.

That's going in the right direction... but I think eventually, companies would have no choice but to offer programs for purchases as opposed to channels. Like you just decide, I want NFL, NHL, F1, Rolex series, Breaking Bad, etc... and just have those show up in your PVR, Tablet, etc...

 

Indeed, Alexb76. We can remain hopefull. I think the current model will fail and produce something new.. its just a question of when. The cable model has been around for 40+ years now at least, and its struggling now with new ways to get content to people. If I could get a TiVO that can get feeds for all of my shows and live streaming for the occasional football game, I'd be all over that and drop the cable tv subscription in a heart-beat.