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Wow, that was a real moment. That's weird for MTV. Joel McHale: Hey, ya know what else is weird for MTV? Showing a music video.
Many cable channels are created to fulfill a specific programming niche. The Golf Channel shows golf, The History Channel shows history programs, and so on. Some channels, however, are not as wedded to their original concept as others. Meddling Executives look at the Demographics to whom their channel appeals, and decide that, hey, since the people watching their Speculative Fiction channel are mostly 18- to 31-year-old males, and Professional Wrestling is hot among that demographic, surely no one would mind if we started showing Professional Wrestling! (*cough cough* Syfy*cough*)
The fans of the original programming will mind, of course, but the channel tends to keep going regardless. This may show up with only a couple of odd programs in the schedule, but far too often, given enough time, a channel will have pretty much abandoned its original concept. Whether or not the former invariably leads to the latter is a subject for debate. Indeed, this is one of those times when They Changed It Now It Sucks is a perfectly valid complaint.
Part of the cause seems to be the fact that the channel is originally created to air shows that are "in the vault" of the company that creates the channels, but soon, the channel's own executives discover that original programming nets them more money, and the new stuff slowly displaces the old. Reality Shows, as a genre where the cost to produce is especially low, are common here. This may result in a new "vault" channel, which slowly undergoes the same process. (Nicktoons Network from Nickelodeon, for example.)
Note that one way to tell if this is happening is if the name of the network is hidden behind an acronym. For example, The Nashville Network referred to itself more and more as TNN (it eventually even changed what it stood for to "The National Network") before becoming Spike TV; similarly, you'd hardly know that TLC was ever called The Learning Channel.
Some changes can be chalked up to the changing landscape of TV. As the number of channels goes up, networks re-align themselves to try and hold some of their market. That, or the parent companies who might own seven or more cable channels each shuffle stuff for "synergy" or to reduce redundancy. Competition with new media is prevalent as well, as classic reruns give way to DVD box sets, music video channels give way to You Tube and iPods, and info-dumping all-text channels give way to the data display in a digital cable box or some new-fangled webernet site. But most of the time, it's just good old-fashioned selling out for ratings — whether it works or not.
Also, be forewarned that this page can be pretty depressing. Music video channels that don't play music videos, fine arts channels deciding reality shows are better business...it isn't pretty.
See Magazine Decay for the print equivalent.
Examples
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Total Abandonment
- The most infamous example is MTV, which will maybe show a music video at 3 AM. If you're lucky. The rest of the time is devoted to reality shows that have nothing to do with music, as well as random programs from other Viacom-owned networks, such as American Gladiators and even Spongebob Squarepants. Music fans are once again left without a channel to call their own. This decay arguably began with the early-1990s addition to MTV's schedule of The Real World and Beavis And Butthead (which featured music videos, albeit with MST 3 K-style commentary by the title characters), two of the most popular programs in the network's history. The MTV executives saw this, and started commissioning more non-music shows, until music had been pushed into late night/early morning and the after-school TRL block (which was often accused of being rigged). Perhaps even more egregiously, MTV is now trying to brand itself as a music network (mostly using its website) even though it is clearly obvious that it isn't one anymore. For example, they have aired ads saying "MTV: Where music isn't dead." Commence laughing now. The final nail in the coffin was probably the cancellation of TRL late last year, although it's still trying to play lip service to its roots with the "FNMTV" block and its new implemented AMTV block of videos on weekday mornings.
- MTV was apparently aware of their hypocrisy. A few years ago, they played a commercial that ended in "MTV: We don't play music."
- On the AMTV block of music videos, there is a ticker on the bottom that says 'more music at mtvmusic.com'. Think about that for a second. Music Television...Music.
- If you go to that page you see they seem to be aware of the irony in the site's logo...
- MTV2 started out as an actual music channel and, for a while after buying out the competing Box music network, became a true haven for music fans. But its descent, especially since changing its logo to the awful "two-headed dog", can best be described as, well, "MTV 2" (one of its few music-related shows, the indie rock-centric Subterranean, is pushed into an unsatisfactory time slot - 1AM Friday morning). (MTV3, by the way, is merely a renamed MTV S, a Spanish MTV channel.)
- MTV's subscription channels have followed a similar pattern, with the metal-centric MTVX being replaced by the rap-centric MTV Jams. MTV Hits, another channel which is still pretty good about music videos, is still going... for now, although it adopted a "playlistism" gimmick in 2006-07. Ditto VH-1 Soul, CMT Pure, and the aforementioned MTV Jams.
- Another MTV all-video digital cable channel, MTVU (which is essentially programmed like a college radio station) is even safer than MTV Hits for now, up to the point where they currently have only three shows on the channel (and two are essentially names for video blocks).
- In Argentina and some European countries, MTV still primarily shows music videos. American reality TV isn't nearly as popular outside America.
- Thanks to a rebranding effort a couple of years back, MTV UK is now known as MTV One and shows nothing but reality shows and animation. This is treated as a SELLING POINT.
- MTV UK's genre channels (MTV Base plays Urban, MTV Two plays indie rock & alternative, to give two examples) have their own programming, but it's related to the music that the channel plays — interviews, that sort of thing. These have recently been cut back in favour of playing more music videos, thus creating the first known instance of MTV being criticised for playing too many music videos.
- MTV Brazil, while being guilty of shows with border relation to music, such as a soccer championship between musicians, at least tried to fix their decay: in 2006, they killed their TRL equivalent. But then in 2008, the network decided to start another "top 10 most requested" show.
- Memorial Day weekend of 2009, MTV (the original US version, that is) went Beyond The Impossible with respect to Network Decay. How so? The network once dedicated to music videos ran a marathon of all six Star Wars movies. I am seriously not making this up.
- And it took Michael Jackson's death for MTV to finally play music videos again. Which only goes to prove what many people have long believed about MTV — that they can show music videos, and they have always been able to, but they just choose not to.
- The French and Walloon (southern Belgium) MTV used to be an English-language channel (weirdly enough). They added subtitles and later dubbing to some of their shows (mostly animated shows and live broadcasts), before adding original French-language shows. Which only makes sense considering the market, and they still aired plenty of music videos. However, it soon got worse, with reality shows (both original French shows and imported ones) taking over the schedule, much like the original MTV. It still airs some music (predominantly hip hop) late at night, but half the screen is taken by texting "live chat", which is full of people looking for hookups. It doesn't help that half the air time is occupied by commercials for text-based games.
- The same could also be said of another French music channel, MCM, that went from music related programs, then started adding "cult" anime at night, then mainstream anime in the middle of the day, then MTV-original reality shows, and finally airing terrible made-for-tv horror movies in their primetime block. You're lucky to catch a music video on it, although it's not as bad as MTV.
- Similarly, MTV's sister channel, VH-1, turned into a channel celebrating pop culture by getting D-list celebrities to comment on it. From there it became obsessed with D-list celebrity reality shows, and currently shows music videos only for a couple hours on weekday mornings.
- As if anticipating its decay, VH-1 launched VH-1 Classic, a station devoted purely to music and music videos, particularly from the '70s and '80s. Even the occasional movie shown was music-related (Footloose and The Wall being two examples). Lately, however, it's started to decay. It's still devoted to music, but it's also started airing some of the old VH-1 programs featuring D-List celebrities (though it's only in mornings and late at night).
- VH 1 Classic has recently made a comeback to stop the decay by airing music festivals like Download and creating music-oriented talk shows like That Metal Show, which has received great reviews. The network is also credited for helping revive the career of the thrash metal band ANVIL by promoting their documentary. Both the band and its fans have cited That Metal Show as a prime reason for the band's newfound popularity.
- VH-1 still shows music videos in Argentina. Of course, it's all '80s/'90s music videos.
- The channel Fuse was created in response to MTV's decay, aimed at a slightly more "hardcore" crowd than MTV's original target audience. Plus, being Canadian, they got wind of some artists before the US did (Avril Lavigne, Sum 41, Choclair, etc.). Soon enough, however, it too began expanding, and now there's maybe two or three hours of music-based programming in any given day. It may be the fastest case of Network Decay ever. This can be arguably traced to when they changed the channel's name to "Fuse" from "Muchmusic USA".
- Fuse tried to branch out into anime
 , but gave up after showing only Ergo Proxy and Tenjho Tenge.
- Fuse seems to have fixed their decay - even the movies they still show are music-related.
- It's arguable, especially given the case of Fuse, that most of these music video channels' decay was inevitable once YouTube, MySpace, and iPods became popular. (Besides MTV, which decayed before this.) Suddenly, these channels were less necessary to advertise certain musicians, and people who actually wanted to see music videos could nab them off the Internet, and so didn't care as much if music video channels decayed. The Internet in general and You Tube in particular has actually caused, to some extent or another, quite a bit of network decay in recent years.
- The Nashville Network, a country station, morphed into TNN (The National Network) and ultimately Spike TV, an unabashed attempt to appeal to every stereotypical male interest possible. (In a case of decay following decay however, Spike TV: "Television for Guys", all but morphed into the CSI repeat network.) This is somewhat understandable, due to Viacom owning both TNN and CMT, causing one of the networks to be retooled to avoid redundancy. However, for three years before Viacom bought CBS, the latter company owned both TNN and CMT, and didn't seem concerned about redundancy. And then you have the fact that...
- CMT, or Country Music Television, has in recent years begun adding programming that has little if any connection to country music. In fact, music videos are played almost exclusively on weekdays during the morning and early afternoon hours, with the primetime and weekend slots being filled with reality shows and random movies, only with a "rural lifestyle" theme. In something of a double Network Decay, CMT has in 2007 even begun moving away from this, showing reruns of shows such as Hogan Knows Best and Nanny 911 along with movies like The Negotiator. One wonders if the channel has a theme anymore. In any case, this seems to be quite the trend among Viacom-owned music stations.
- G4, a struggling video game network, bought out Tech TV, a wildly popular computer enthusiast network, and basically turned into a geekier version of Spike TV. Currently, G4's lineup includes reality shows like Totally Outrageous Behavior and COPS (titled "COPS 2.0"), Japanese game shows such as Ninja Warrior and Unbeatable Banzuke, and reruns of Star Trek, Lost, and Heroes. Apparently, it would seem that the executives' reasoning is that if it sounds geeky, and/or slackers are sure to watch it, it is therefore relevant to the channel. But then, they even broke that line of reasoning by airing Cheaters, a reality show about people getting caught on tape cheating on their lovers. The only shows left on the network that are relevant to either channel's former demographics are X-Play (the only Tech TV show left, with its hosts being the only Tech TV employees whatsoever still at G4) and Attack of the Show. Ironically, they're also G4's highest-rated programs. G4 seems to deny all of this.
- G4 is one of the biggest examples of how companies overestimate how effective certain channel plans can be. G4 was made when the video game industry was focused on luring in teenage boys and young men (man, that sounded wrong). Lately, however, with the success of the Wii and its appeal to "casual gamers," the industry is starting to feel that catering to the young male demographic wasn't such a smart idea. The video game industry had left G4 behind.
- In the UK, similar fates befell Game Network (which now airs soft pornography, phone-in quizzes and psychic hotlines) and later XLEAGUE.TV (from eSports, to general games, to games-with-some-odd-niche-US-sports, to not broadcasting at all in the space of about 18 months).
- Fortunately, the Canadian version of the channel, known as G4TechTV, remains games-and-technology orientated.
- This troper recalls a day where, during the entire 24-hour period, there was not a single episode of any video game-related programming broadcast. No X-Play and not even AOTS.
- In summer 2008, they aired a block of programming called G4 Rewind, where they'd show old episodes of X-Play, Cheat!, and a bunch of programs they cancelled. Granted, it was all horribly out of date, but seeing actual video game shows on the alleged video game channel made me sit down and watch for a while. Too bad they decided to scrap that idea and show COPS reruns instead.
- A&E (which stands for Arts & Entertainment) used to show artsy films and documentaries for the over-30 audience. Now, you're lucky if you find a single Columbo episode or film amid the morass of reality shows, CSI: Miami and Crossing Jordan reruns and marathons, and True Crime shows. Its executive even joked at one point that the channel experienced the fastest drop in average demographic age ever.
- Its Biography Channel spin-off hasn't fared much better; about half the programming now consists of true-crime shows and repeats of shows like Airline. At one point, they even showed reruns of Night Court and News Radio! Thankfully, they have long been dropped from the lineup (no offense intended toward fans of either show).
- The era in which they aired Night Court and News Radio was when they were appearing to be trying to be to A&E what Boomerang was to Cartoon Network, as both of those shows were rerun on A&E in the past (the Murder She Wrote reruns that used to be on A&E had also aired on Biography Channel for a time).
- TLC, originally focusing around science and nature documentaries in the style of the Discovery Channel, now features almost nothing but "home makeover"-style reality shows. In a somewhat confusing (in these days of internet porn) play at grabbing the all important 18-30 male demographic, TLC recently acquired the rights to air the Miss America pageant. Nowadays, one would never guess that TLC used to be called The Learning Channel. This just about sums it all up.
- That list forgets the biggest circus of all on TLC: Jon and Kate Plus 8. Or, as it is soon to be known, just Kate Plus 8.
- Or Jon Minus 9.
- With shows like Toddlers in Tiaras, 15 and counting, and My Monkey Baby The Learning Channel should become The Freak Show Channel.
- Court TV: Originally, the channel aired only actual courtroom trials, which included the proceedings along with anchor's analysis. Then the channel began carrying original and acquired shows. It was recently revamped as TruTV, completely dropping the live court footage that defined it originally. Recently, though, TruTV has started playing court footage once more, for about six hours each weekday.
- TruTV then started abandoning their "Not Reality, Actuality" tagline by showing Operation Repo, a scripted (albeit based on real events) show about some repo men in California. Also, it isn't very good.
- And since it's apparently very popular, it's opened the flood gates for more shows of it's kind. Though they don't take up that much time of the week.
- E! Entertainment Network is another good example. Originally showing movie previews (like MTV for movie buffs), soap opera and talk show recap programs, and many making-of documentaries and specials that covered everything from live theater to animation, it eventually became all about celebrity news (i.e. gossip) and True Hollywood Stories. Then it started airing all sorts of non-celebrity-related reality programs. With shows like The Girls Next Door, Paradise City (The Hills with slightly older people), and Sunset Tan (essentially centering on watching blondes in tanning salons), it comes as no surprise that, in recent commercials, E! openly acknowledges itself as a Guilty Pleasure channel. And they even have The Soup to make fun of themselves with.
- While Bravo originally focused on independent cinema and the arts, it switched over to a reality show format in the wake of hits like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, with occasional stragglers like Inside the Actors' Studio still inexplicably present.
- They also show Law And Order: Criminal Intent reruns on Sunday, which is contrary to both their former and current programming.
- Christian Broadcasting Network, originally launched by Pat Robertson as the cable TV arm of his ministry, gradually began to add more and more general entertainment and non-religious programming to its lineup throughout the '80s. As the ratio of religious to non-religious programming shifted, it became CBN, then CBN Family, then the Family Channel, before being bought out by Fox and later sold to ABC. When Disney wanted to rename the channel to "XYZ" to remarket it to a different audience, it discovered that the contracts with the cable companies required that the word "Family" stay in the channel name, making this impossible. Its name may not have changed, but as evidenced by Greek and Slacker Cats, ABC Family isn't really that family oriented anymore. Today, The 700 Club (required in the original contract with Pat Robertson) is the only thing left hinting at ABC Family's roots as a religious channel, and even then, they've buried it at 11 PM and put a disclaimer in front of it to warn people (containing an unequivocal "does not reflect the views of ABC Family" due to some controversial statements that Robertson has made). Oddly, its attempts at redefinition seem to be rather evenly split between attempting to recreate the former WB network and attract teen/young adult audiences, and competing with the Disney Channel for the tween demographic.
- At some point, ABC Family's motto was "Adults are family too," thus completing the decay.
- This troper is of the opinion that the current incarnation of ABC Family is actually a highly watchable channel (if you ignore Secret Life and Greek, that shows lots of good movies and occasional reruns of Whose Line. Sure, it'd be nice if they hadn't dropped the Jetix block (IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SECOND SEASON OF W.I.T.C.H. DAMMIT), but ABC Family is a hell of a lot more fun to watch than its previous iterations. (Even if its current TV 14 serial dramas are indicative of some serious decay of its own...)
- Several networks over the years gradually dumped their traditional Saturday morning blocks for more dramas, reality shows, soaps, and news. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, five of the six broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and The WB, but not UPN) had the entire 6 a.m. to noon block of Saturdays set aside just for animated programs and other programs appealing to people of all ages, with Fox and the WB even going so far as to add in an extra two to three hours every weekday morning and afternoon, as well. Now, only The CW maintains a full-length Saturday morning block (and even then, it's made by 4Kids Entertainment, which is almost never a good sign). NBC, CBS and ABC have shortened theirs to the three-hour minimum required by federal mandates (and putting little effort into them — ABC's block is all Disney Channel and Disney XD reruns, while NBC and CBS' blocks are filled with Aesop-heavy shows made by other companies), and Fox (which, like UPN, managed to avoid the federal mandates by exploiting loopholes) has abandoned its Saturday morning animation block altogether, airing infomercials instead. The decay of Saturday morning blocks was in part due to increasing cable competition (particularly Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network), and partially due to the mandates. Since few kids above preschool age watch strictly educational shows, there was little incentive for producers to make them, and entertainment-oriented shows like The Weird Al Show were compromised by constant Executive Meddling to fit the mandates.
- The British satellite station Bravo (unrelated to the American Bravo mentioned above) began as a channel showing black and white TV from the sixties (mostly Lew Grade action shows), dropped this in favour of Speculative Fiction and horror, dumped that for True Crime shows and "adult programming," and now shows an eclectic mix of programmes that can best be described as "lad's mag television". In other words, the British version of Spike TV, right down to them both showing TNA Wrestling and UFC as the big draws.
- SBS in Australia was originally created to show foreign language programmes to Australians who spoke languages other than English. Since there are so many of them (at the very least it would need to do Chinese, Italian and Greek), it couldn't dedicate itself to them all, and since pay TV services like RAI and ANT 1 launched later did it much better, it gradually became the mix of documentaries, sex, soccer and South Park that it's known for today. "SBS" is now understood to mean "Sex Before Soccer."
- Similarly, Imparja was created to service indigenous Australians in Central Australia, but, thanks to network aggregation, it is now essentially Channel Nine from Sydney with a couple of breakaway programmes.
- Australian examples are rare because there are so few networks, most of them are owned by the same companies, and the ratings are too small to quibble about (if the most watched programme in Australian pay TV history got 419,000 viewers, how is the How To Channel supposed to gain any?). The only notable example is Fox Kids, which adopted a programming block called Fox Classics (not entirely unlike Nick At Nite) before the Fox Kids block moved to Fox8, leaving Fox Classics to absorb the entire network.
- British channel "Dave" appears to be going this way. Although it initially seemed to be a channel showing mostly BBC sitcoms and panel-shows that are too recent to be shown on UK Gold. Then someone realised how popular Top Gear has become lately, and now it plays that show all day, with a few other car-based programs, and, inexplicably — a reality TV show set in an airport? Even Top Gear is making jokes about it.
- Speaking of UK Gold, it went from a mix of the BBC and Thames archives, to suffering the same "6 months ago is classic" syndrome the US "classic" TV channels seem to have suffered, with a sprinkling of fairly recent Hollywood films and repeats of Prison Break. It’s now been split into the backronymed G.O.L.D. ("Go On Laugh Daily"), a comedy channel mostly recycling all the same old shows that are always repeated, and Watch, which takes the rest of the "classic" output of UK Gold and mixes it with Richard and Judy.
- In probably the only instance of live action network decay in a TV program, one of the contestants in Tycoon (a business program like The Apprentice) lost the topic of their magazine about students to general gossip just a week in, and promptly got shut down in the second episode of the show.
- BETJ used to be called BET Jazz, and focused on, believe it or not, jazz. Concerts, videos, wonderful old Panoram films, occasional spoken-word programs, and pretty much nothing else, 24/7. The revamped version is mostly talk shows aimed at a relatively mature audience; the little music they play is Caribbean or soul.
- Not anymore. Now, it's Centric, which seems to be Viacom's attempt to go up against TV One.
- Discovery Health, one of the few Discovery related channels to remain completely true to its concept (medical and health related shows) will be replaced in
2009 2010 2011 with a network devoted entirely to Oprah. Yes, you read that correctly: an entire channel dedicated to Oprah.
- Doesn't she already have Oxygen?
- Not anymore, that got sold to NBC Universal, and she ditched out long before when it became clear yoga shows and programs showing women in a positive light didn't get ratings at all. Also, they got mad at her when she wouldn't allow her talk show reruns there, making the whole point of her investing in Oxygen moot.
- They're already starting to slip. This troper has noted that they are pretty much "The Childbirth Channel". There are about 3-4 hours of shows that actually make it into the day's programming that don't show only childbirth.
- As this troper recalls, two of those remaining 3-4 hours are about babies. I can't even remember seeing a show on that channel in recent years that didn't involve babies in some way.
- Also, Jon & Kate Plus 8 started out on Discovery Health before moving to TLC.
- In Latin America, Infinito was a cable channel that used to show documentaries about conspiracy theories, UFOs, Atlantis, global warming (before it became mainstream), alternative medicine, and related stuff. Suddenly, in the mid 2000s, the channel started to mutate into a really bad Travel Channel wannabe, showcasing documentaries about New Age society, alternative lifestyles, Feng Shui, and spas which no one cares about. By 2009, it had completely ditched its original concept revolving around alternative sciences.
- I vaguely recall Universal Channel being originally a sci-fi channel with a different name.
- It was called USA Network, and used to air Xena and Hercules.
- AXN was originally meant to be an all-action channel, but now they run movies and TV series in general.
- Space originally showed both subtitled and dubbed movies before it became an all-dubbed channel (like what TNT used to be).
- The Film Zone originally showed both new and old movies before dedicating itself to movies too old for other channels, but not old enough for Retro and TCM.
- The Sci Fi Channel started out as a network devoted to science fiction shows and movies. Even when they started bringing in fantasy and horror, most fans didn't mind, since these still fell under the label of "speculative fiction", which sci-fi was often lumped in with. It was when they started adding reality shows, Law and Order: SVU reruns and, most damningly, professional wrestling to the schedule that it really began to decay. Their recent name change to "SyFy" (pronounced the same way though it looks like it could be prononundced like Sihfee) only confirms their position in Total Abandonment. The executives claimed that they wanted a name that could be trademarked, but most people are convinced otherwise. Their insulting explanation for the name change, in which they refer to sci-fi fans as basement dwellers and insinuated that they repulse women, went a long way toward accomplishing this.
- This troper recalls that World Wrestling Entertainment went to NBC Universal with ECW, and they looked at all the various options as it pertained to where to place ECW — USA was out because it already had RAW, NBC didn't need it, and almost every other channel they owned was considered a "poor fit" for ECW. Sci-Fi was the only network they had left to put it on, and the demographics for speculative fiction and pro wrestling (young males) looked the same at first glance. (Apparently, being an entirely different genre doesn't qualify you as "poor fit".)
- Or that Sci-Fi unlike all of NBC Universal's other stations, it actually aims for the same demographic as Pro Wrestling. I mean there has got to be a reason why Spike TV airs Star Trek in addition to TNA Wrestling and UFC.
- It's also technically their highest rated program.
- Despite all of the above, as of October 2009 only three new shows have been added since the rebranding: Ghost Whisperer, Warehouse13, and Stargate Universe. Three shows that easily fall under Speculative Fiction. Maybe the whole rebranding was smoke and mirrors?
- The problem with the Scifi Channel is summed up with the cancellation of Stargate SG-1. It was a critically acclaimed show that was popular to the point of being a household name, but was cancelled because most of its audience was middle-aged women, and the executives saw their network's theme as targeting young men. This is made truly ironic by the fact that Sci Fi's moves away from Science Fiction are constantly justified by their need to target a broader and, particularly, more female audience.
- In Canada, Sci-Fi's counterpart (called Space) manages to mostly avoid this, though they have somewhat broadened their scope to show fantasy and horror shows/movies, such as Supernatural and Relic Hunter. Still, the various Stargate Verse shows and Star Trek series do constitute about 70% of what Space airs.
- The Spanish cable channel Buzz was once focused on anime, and the only place in Spain to ever show Seinens and subbed anime with the original voices. They started showing more unrelated stuff (extreme sports? Huh...), and now the only anime-related thing they show is Hentai movies on weekends, according to the cable provider's TV Guide.
- Toon Disney started out as the Alternate Company Equivalent to Cartoon Network, airing animated shows from the Disney archive (and some that they had acquired, mostly from Dic Entertainment). Then, they started airing a growing number of non-Disney cartoons (including some from their arch-rival, Warner Bros), and the Jetix block, which featured shows like Power Rangers, Digimon, The Tick, and Jackie Chan Adventures, started eating up a growing chunk of the channel's airtime. Live-action shows and movies started appearing on the network, mirroring Cartoon Network's decay. Finally, last year, Toon Disney was renamed Disney XD (which means "eXtreme Digital") and turned into a network aimed at young boys. In other words, it finally became Jetix in all but name — in the process, dropping a significant portion of its remaining animated content to cram in episodes of The Suite Life Of Zach And Cody, Even Stevens, and Zeke And Luther.
- In some other countries, Jetix is its own channel. For whatever reason, Disney decided that it would be better to append it as a programming block onto a network it has nothing to do with, and then let it swallow the network whole.
- Funny thing: in Latin America and Brazil, "Jetix" is what Fox Kids mutated into. After Disney bought Fox Kids when Saban went down the toilet, they renamed it Jetix, dumped all of their programming and started from scratch. However, they still show TheFairly OddParents (one of the last shows Fox Kids ever aired, and which can also be seen on the Disney Channel), various Power Rangers shows (who were on Fox Kids to begin with down here), and the "Super Hora" block of Marvel Comics cartoons (The Incredible Hulk, X-Men and Spider-Man Unlimited).
- In Eastern Europe, Fox Kids became Jetix, dumping most of the Fox Original cartoons, but retaining Disney originals and anime adaptations, like Shaman King, eventually airing a few original shows, such as Galactik Football and Oban Star Racers. Right now (late 2009) it has mutated again into a straight-up Disney Channel, dumping the old Jetix shows and replacing them with regular Disney Channel broadcast.
- Australia, as I seem to recall, had the Jetix programming block on the 7 Network for a short time. It vanished just as quietly as it emerged though.
- The Fox network would have avoided all this if they hadn't sold their successful "Fox Kids" lineup (which aired Power Rangers, Spider Man The Animated Series, Digimon, and others) to Disney/ABC via the Fox Family network. They then retooled their Saturday morning lineup into "The Fox Box", which consisted almost entirely of 4Kids Macekres. Naturally, they lampshaded this by changing the lineup's name to "4Kids TV". Then, of course, they replaced Saturday morning kids' shows with infomercials.
- The rebranding does have positive aspects. Disney XD has the rights to both The Spectacular Spider Man and Naruto Shippuden, two shows that were abandoned by decaying networks and might have been lost forever. Other similar shows with similar Periphery Demographics are rumored to follow. Then there's rumors of a new vault Toon Disney in the works with the hope that 3 kids channels will be enough to spread the love.
- Versus, originally the Outdoor Life Network (licensed from a magazine of the same name), a channel that focused on outdoorsy stuff like hunting and fishing. Then they acquired the rights to the NHL, a sport which is not played outdoors (although they've recently started having an "Outdoor Classic" each year. Can you call it a classic when the first one was held during the '07-'08 season?). Around the same time, they started to focus on extreme sports, resulting in the name change. They now air college football and basketball (oddly only covering games from the western half of the country despite being based out of Philadelphia, and out of New England prior to that) and have acquired the television rights to the Grey Cup. In other words, they seem to be aiming to become a more Badass alternative to ESPN.
- It even has a sports version of The Soup, appropriately called Sports Soup.
- NHL fans were angry when the NHL gave exclusive rights to broadcast games to Versus and NBC for another few years. Considering that the league is getting more popular with the addition of new superstars like Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin, it's becoming more ill-suited to the two channels by the season, since NBC only broadcasts nationally-televised games halfway through the regular season- and even then, only on Saturday afternoons.
- The TV Guide Channel, formerly the Prevue Guide. Originally a nice little channel that gave the local TV listings and the weather, with unobtrusive text ads with Teletext-style graphics and music from a local radio station. About a year later, it added Muzak, dedicated half of the screen to trailers with the rare show (or whatever the cable company wanted), and since then it was bought by TV Guide and mutated into the tabloid channel it is today. When TV Guide took over, the listings were pushed down to the bottom half of the screen so as to make more room to show talking heads blab about reality shows, awards ceremonies, and whatever Britney did. And when Lionsgate bought the network in 2009, the listings were removed altogether, prompting a few cable companies to drop the channel. It could be argued that this change was made to compete with Internet channel listings and the electronic program guide features available with satellite and premium cable packages, which allow viewers to scroll through the listings at will and even select channels from the menu. However, TV Guide Channel started its slide years before these features became common. Also, people with the rudimentary basic cable package do not have electronic program guides, which means that they are now pretty much out of luck if they just want to see what's on television.
- The magazine followed a similar path, dropping TV listings entirely and moving to entertainment news, with the physical form of the magazine going from digest to glossy.
- There is also TV Guide on Screen, implemented in certain TVs, which is pretty close to its Prevue Guide roots.
- The TV Guide Channel is apparently now the "Remebering Michael Jackson" Channel.
Starting To Slip
- The less we speak of Animax's (which is supposed to be a 24 hour anime channel) Latin American side, both Brazilian and Spanish-speaking versions, the better. Just the most egregious example: its cycle of Movies appropriately named "Reciclo", since it recycles all the action flicks already worn by repetition in other channel of the Sony Group, like AXN and TNT. The only remotely anime related movie shown there was Tokyo Godfathers... and they had repeated Hellboy and The Fifth Element each six weeks or so since its inception.
- They now are broadcasting Lost, Blood Ties, and The Middle Man. The Brazilian side also have infomertials at odd hours...
- They have recently canceled a slew of top-rated series, such as Death Note and Neon Genesis Evangelion, and inserted a concert block for Latin American performers. This block has two daily reruns.
- It's also telling that, out of their nine November show premieres, only two are animated (The Boondocks and Li'l Bush) and the rest focus on the lives and misadventures of unknown Argentinian singers, reality shows about the daily lives of surfers, or American Dreams. In response to fan complaints, network representatives have stated on Twitter that they have no plans for new anime series and that they intend to continue diversifying the channel's lineup. So Yeah. Expect Animax to move up to Total Abandonment soon. *
- TV Land started out as, basically, Nick At Nite 2, focusing on old TV shows not even Nick At Nite showed anymore; Gilligan's Island, Mister Ed, Father Knows Best, etc. Lately, though, it's been following a similar track, airing shows that are either incredibly recent (Extreme Makeover?!) or original reality series that don't have anything to do with classic TV. (One can respect what they're doing with She's Got The Look, but it doesn't belong there.) With the recent additions of Scrubs and a CSI marathon, it'll probably be upgraded to Total Abandonment in the next year or so.
- CNN Headline News was originally 24 hours of just headline news. Recently the channel has been adding talk shows, tabloid material, all the pundits you can eat, and Missing White Woman Syndrome coverage. Now it's at least partially changed its on-air branding to "HLN".
- Not a network, but PBS' historical documentary series Secrets of the Dead originally followed investigators using modern-day science to learn about the long-ago dead. Now it just shows any documentary related to history, with the spooky title sequence quickly becoming The Artifact. For example, in their recent "Doping for Gold", about East German authorities drugging their Olympic athletes in the '70s and '80s, pretty much everyone involved in the story was still living and, in fact, interviewed for the show.
- Much of the History Channel's (now called "History" — if they follow SyFy's embrace of text-culture spelling, they'll soon be called Teh Hist-R-E!!!) programming now consists of roughneck-focused reality shows (Ice Road Truckers, Ax Men) and conspiracy theory "documentaries" about UFOs, the Bible Code, ghosts, Atlantis, Nostradamus, and the end of the world, earning the network the derisive nickname "The Histerical Channel". Even before that, most of their history-related programming was related to the American Civil War, World War II and/or the Nazis (the latter often tied to paranormal shows), which earned the network another nickname: "The Hitler Channel."
- The Daily Show did a spoof on this a few years back, with Ed Helms producing a History Channel-style piece where everything was inevitably compared to the American Civil War or Hitler.
- The WWII fixation stretches back to the salad days of A&E, from which History Channel was spun off. In the 1991 Mystery Science Theatre 3000 episode The Amazing Colossal Man, A&E is referenced, and Tom says, "The all-Hitler channel, you mean?"
- Realising its sheer number of military programmes, including a documentary series on modern day Canadian fighter pilots, the UK now has a Military History channel spun off from its History Channel.
- The US also has a Military Channel... which also happens to fit this trope perfectly, because it used to be Discovery Wings, a network dedicated exclusively to aviation. Until the execs caught onto the fact that their most popular shows were about military aviation....
- The History Channel and the Military Channel have different owners, so the History Channel's transition from Hitler to Nostradamus was only coincidentally correlated with the rise of the Military Channel.
- And now they have a new show that is apparently showing ancient battles 300-style, complete with ridiculous Bullet Time fighting, bad CGI backgrounds, and spinning arrows. The whole point of fletching is to prevent arrows from spinning!
- The episode on Hannibal's campaign in Italy was pretty solid, the presentation and amount of content was a lot more impressive than an academic-style show that dealt with the same subject later that day. Watched a couple episodes, surprisingly solid show underneath the cheesy sugarcoating.
- Heck, at least the "all-Hitler channel" was actual history. The current UFO/Bible Code/conspiracy shows are not history. Unless you actually believe that stuff.
- Even if you actually believe that stuff, it is not history; it is paranoia.
- The Finnish Voice initially advertised itself as a 100% music channel. Nowadays half of the screen time is occupied by Vii5i, which shows reruns of old TV series. Considering that one of the series is Farscape, This Troper doesn't mind. Yet.
- No mentions of Game Show Network, or now, GSN? The decay started in 1997, when they lost the rights to all shows from the Mark Goodson-Bill Todman library (except The Price Is Right and the one season of the '90s Family Feud when Richard Dawson returned). This time was called the stations Dark Period. Eventually, the Goodson-Todman shows returned, but there was less variety for awhile on the daily schedule, and some programs remained MIA. Then came an onslaught of lame original programming (Extreme Gong, Throut and Neck, D.J. Games). And this is also when credit crunches and editing out fee plugs began, which would go on to continue to plague the network for classic game show fans. The rights to The Price Is Right would be lost for good at this time as well, and vintage black-and-white shows of the '50s and '60s became rarer still. The quality of the network has been fluctuating ever since, up to its name change, which led to not just game shows being seen there (reality, casino, and other "games" would debut on the schedule). There are constant debates on what should and shouldn't be on the schedules, though they seem to be leaning back towards the game show genre again, and in recent years have occasionally brought out some nice surprises.
- ...Then they announced plans to air a reality show starring Carnie Wilson. Oh Crap.
- The Discovery Channel still shows plenty of actual documentary material, despite having been decaying for almost as long as MTV has. In The Nineties, they showed an obscene amount of home improvement shows and cooking shows aimed at stay-at-home moms, and now, they are being swamped with "guys building and/or blowing things up" shows in the vein of Mythbusters and Monster Garage. Recently, Discovery has also added a game show that takes place in the back of a cab, leaving one unsure whether it even has a theme beyond "non-fiction".
- Except for Blue Planet. That's a pretty good documentary show.
- It gets weird when you realize that they're knocking some of their own shows off, especially Mythbusters into Smash Lab (with a focus on safety measures) and How It's Made into Some Assembly Required. The latter has almost only done products featured in the former (though How It's Made has been on for just about ten years, so it's hard to find something they haven't done).
- And, just to cover all the bases in ripping off their own shows, they've recently started airing reruns of cancelled The Learning Channel show Mostly True Stories: Urban Legends Revealed. The show actually predates Mythbusters, but given their tendencies on programming lately, they probably just picked it up to cover the "testing the validity of urban legends" angle that Smash Lab wasn't covering in its rip-off of Mythbusters.
- It gets worse. The UK version is showing movies.
- The Discovery Channel also used to contain a lot of nature. This is where the now classic Shark Week (which they still air regularly) originated from. But it seems that explosions have taken the place of tigers ripping stuff to pieces. Most of the nature shows have since been relegated to Animal Planet.
- The Brazilian Discovery Channel is mostly true to its roots, in the sense that the Mythbusters is still the closest thing to a reality show it airs currently (although Monster Garage and others have already came and gone). However, much like the History Channel in the United States (see above), it has recently been airing subject matter that can be charitably described as pseudoscience. After watching what I thought was a mockumentary (it wasn't, sadly) about how creationism was certainly real (not "plausible", but real), complete with how "easy" it was to build's Noah's ark, I have refused to watch or trust any Discovery Channel documentaries since.
- The Dutch Discovery Channel recently aired a soccer match.
- Currently running are ads for a special to be run on the US Discovery Channel supposedly containing proof of Darwin. Minor problem: as this troper's biology professors repeatedly stated, modern evolutionary theory, aka the "modern synthesis," diverged from Darwin decades ago. This troper is not sure if it's quite worth watching to find out how bad it gets, given that apparently they missed that Lucy has turned out to not be all people originally thought she was.
- Teletoon, in their efforts to be as much like Cartoon Network's Canadian equivalent (well, they do import most of their shows), have lately added more and more live action movies to their lineup: Their license mandates it has to be "animated" or "animation-related" — which apparently includes "based on a comic book" as they've shown various comic book movies. Apparently "has a cartoon based on it" also counts — Spaceballs and The Matrix have also been shown.
- And then they threw out said rules for live-action films by airing Gremlins.
- Their Retro spinoff channel (the equivalent of Boomerang) has been good about remaining animated so far (even the arguable exceptions of Fraggle Rock and The Banana Splits are a puppet show and contain cartoon segments, respectively), but are stretching the definition of "retro" with ReBoot. Then again, their definition of "retro" is any show that's more than ten years old, and ReBoot was made fifteen years ago, a fact that has caused some tropers to feel old.
- AMC (American Movie Classics) originally showed commercial-free screenings of films from the black-and-white era. Then TCM was launched, causing them to lose the rights to the Turner collection, which comprised the bulk of their film library. The network now consists largely of commercial-laden broadcasts of modern films, many of which are hardly deserving of the adjective "classic" (Catwoman? Really!?) Lately, they've even been airing the scripted dramas Mad Men and Breaking Bad, which, unusually for this trope, are actually critically-acclaimed original series that just happens to be on the wrong channel. (Reportedly, the producers of Mad Men turned to AMC after HBO turned them down, Matthew Weiner worked for The Sopranos and Mad Men was the spec script that got him the job, seven years later and HBO asked him what he wanted to do next, he showed them Mad Men and they turned him down.) One can argue that AMC had already starting breaking its rules when it aired its original series Remember WENN, but at least that show was made to sort of fit in with its movies (premise: life at a 1930s-40s radio station). Also, their annual Monsterfest block, which aired every October and focused on classic horror, has since been replaced with Fearfest, which basically means "5 days of Jason & Halloween films."
- National Geographic Channel, or "Nat Geo," is showing signs of slippage. The National Geographic Society's website features the slogan "Inspiring People to Care About the Planet". How exactly they are accomplishing this with The Dog Whisperer, Locked Up Abroad, and shows about bounty hunters is left as an exercise for the viewer.
- YTV is showing signs of decay as well. More and more live action TV is on YTV, and anything that isn't that is reruns of Nickelodeon Cartoons.
- Objection: YTV, unlike Teletoon, has never been about animation. They've aired some animated shows, but they also aired Power Rangers and a number of Brit Coms back in the day, and they were the network for Buffy The Vampire Slayer (which they aired uncut) and Farscape. They're more the Canadian version of Nickelodeon, only with a greater focus on teenagers.
- They've also cancelled a lot of good shows from their late-night block (Futurama being the most notable one) to make room for more "hip" live-action programming (such as the abysmal reality show "Prank Patrol", American Idol knockoff "The Next Star", and the train wreck that is "Ghost Trackers".)
- The Speed Channel still shows some actual racing, in between the endless reality TV tuner shows and car auctions. It probably began when they changed their name from Speedvision. Indeed, Starting to Slip is very apropo.
- Hey, at least they're still about cars.
- The Weather Channel used to be all-weather all-the-time, but in recent years has added documentary programs such as Storm Stories, It Could Happen Tomorrow, and recently When Weather Changed History, the latter two closer to an un-decayed Discovery or History Channel than Weather. Some of these programs actually feature earthquakes and volcanoes and meteor strikes on Earth, not exactly weather material. In the evening, one may be lucky to get up to two hours of current weather news. In this case, it's a survival mechanism, as the simple, graphic display of the weather they used to capitalize on is available at the press of a button on most digital cable services, the internet (including their own website), cell phones, and even some game consoles — Wii Forecast Channel, for the block. All of this makes the Bloodhound Gang's line "record the Weather Channel so I can watch it later" almost pathetically prophetic.
- The worst thing about this is that most destructive weather occurs in the evening hours. Need to see if the damaging winds and storms are headed your way? Too bad! Watch this documentary on Peruvian mudslides instead! If anything, they're shooting themselves in the feet in the hoping-to-survive-the-weather demographic.
- This actually happened to me a couple of days ago at a sleepover. We were all freaked out over sirens going off in neighboring towns, so we switched to the weather channel. We had to bear ten minutes of freaking Storm Stories and dumb medicine ads, and guess what the forecast was? "Slight chance of rain and snow"
- In light of this point, their Local On the 8s feature — which is supposed to show your local area's weather — isn't so local anymore. As in, almost not at all.
- Also, starting on October 30, the Weather Channel will also start airing MOVIES. That's about as far away as weather forecasting as you can get.
- Boomerang, Cartoon Network's classic animation channel has now apparently begun dumping their rules on how old a cartoon has to be in order for them to show it, and have also become rather hypocritical about which ones they show. They're willing to run Baby Looney Tunes and Duck Dodgers (2002-05), but not the 1990s Looney Tunes spin-offs Taz-Mania or The Sylvester And Tweety Mysteries; the same unfortunately also goes for other 1990s Warner Bros. Animation fare like Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, and Histeria, despite this network having previously shown Batman The Animated Series and Superman The Animated Series (which now air on Disney XD, ironically enough).
Single Anomalies
- TG4 (originally T na G/Teleifís na Gaeilge) began as a channel devoted to Irish-language shows. Though it still shows many series in Irish, increasing amounts of time are given to American series such as Cold Case and Nip/Tuck, as well as Westerns and French films. Most viewers would not mind so much if these shows at least had Irish subtitles in the same way that most of the shows which do feature Irish dialogue have English subtitles. One particularly egregious example was the Hector O'hEochagáin Show, which had dialogue in both Irish and English. The Irish was subtitled, but the English was not.
- Wiki example: TV Tropes Wiki. Despite the name, this site no longer focuses on television. Over the past couple of years, it has added movies, books, board games and video games to its lineup. It's rumored that it'll change its name in the near future, perhaps to something like "Tropes Wiki X-Treme".
- At least we're kind enough to admit it on the front page. And at least we still include TV shows.
- Hell, it's been moving away from tropes lately, adding Useful Notes, writer's tools and humor pages. Your Mileage Will Vary on whether these changes make the wiki better or worse.
- "Worse" is if somebody starts quietly eliminating trope entries in favor of the new stuff, then moves it to a new wiki called "Classic Narrative Tropes," where all the links come back to Tropes Wiki X-Treme's miscellaneous junk.
- also, the wiki has (virtually) unlimited space, so the tropes will never be REMOVED to make way for other stuff. and the reason we arent adding new tropes is that, being tropes, new ones arent created (for the most part), since to be a trope it has to be used a lot, which means it has to exist long enough to be copied.
- Studio example: In the later Weinstein-run years, arthouse distributor Miramax Films began distributing "mainstream" films like She's All That.
Major Shifts That Still Fit The Channel Name
- Nickelodeon. Over the years, the network has severely narrowed its demographic by increments. It originally prided itself as being essentially a family network, with an emphasis on programming for children in the daytime (preschoolers in the early morning on weekdays), teens in early evening, and parents at night. Now, however, most if not all of the teen and adult programming (SNICK, Nick At Nite, and the last vestiges of children's game shows, to name a few) has been dumped in favor of cartoon-y cartoons and tween and preteen "hip" live action series (and about 12 hours of SpongeBob reruns daily). The worst and most obvious example of this is the recent live action show on the so-called "TEENick" lineup (which retains only one or two shows about/directed towards actual teenagers), The Naked Brothers Band, which essentially is a Hannah Montana ripoff about two 9-year-old boys. Really.
- Interestingly, you can see how Nick was trying so intensely to narrow down the age of people watching the network when you look at the failure of shows like Invader Zim. And by "failure," we really mean "it was being watched primarily by teens and college kids, not the 6-11 year olds that Viacom wanted." In this troper's opinion, Avatar: The Last Airbender would've gone the same way as Zim if it weren't for the fact that it was just as popular with the target age as it was with the teens (and the college kids, and the adults). Even then, the network seemed to resent the attention it got from older viewers, as new episodes came out at a snail's pace and reruns are almost never shown now that the show has ended (possibly in part because of having an actual plot, instead of being episodic like most cartoons).
- Nicktoons Network dumped showing of older or cancelled Nicktoons such as Angry Beavers, Doug, Ren And Stimpy, Rugrats, Hey Arnold, etc., in favor of showing reruns of the exact same shows playing on Nickelodeon, just a few channels away. As of 2006, the channel has also abandoned its "commercial-free" notion. What was once its mascot, the Too Good To Last Invader Zim, has been pushed back to 5 AM. This also meant the end of slime shows like Super Sloppy Double Dare and the like.
- Another Nick spinoff, Nick GAS (Games and Sports), was formerly a dumping ground for Nick's aforementioned children's game shows and game/sports-themed shows, along with original segments dealing with kids and their games and sports. It slowly lost programs until, at the end of its run, it was only airing reruns of a few old Nick game shows, having lost all of the original segments and programming. It was finally replaced with the teen-oriented "The N", formerly part of the now just-for-preschoolers Noggin, a switch which now leaves millions of college kids without reruns of Legends of the Hidden Temple to sarcastically comment about.
- Naturally, "The N" itself quickly decayed, with a mass-canceling of much of their teen/young adult oriented programming (such as South Of Nowhere and Instant Star), and devoting an increasing amount of airtime to old Nickelodeon shows and other Disney Channel-esque tween fare. A special mention goes out to the way they treated Degrassi: The Next Generation. The N's broadcasts of that show had always been bowdlerized, the most infamous example being when they refused to air an episode about abortion for fear of offending the Moral Guardians. It got worse when the show started becoming really popular in America, putting The N in a position to force creative changes onto the show that served to turn it from a fairly realistic (if hyper-melodramatic) depiction of teenage life into a clone of The OC.
- And now, in a two-for-one decay, the TEENick block is being dumped from Nickelodeon proper, while The N is being renamed "TeenNick". Let's hope that they're better with keeping decay under control this time (although I wouldn't place any bets).
- "The N" used to share a programming half with "Noggin", which used to be about education for young people. That demo got younger and younger until now it's for 3-5 year olds (and itself has bitten the bullet and renamed itself Nick Jr.)
- Also, Nick At Nite in general. It started out as the after-dark portion of Nickelodeon, where they showed decades-old TV shows (The Munsters, I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and so on). But as time went on, it began adding shows that were ten years old or less (Roseanne, The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, and most damningly, The George Lopez Show), and eventually, they changed their motto to "The Place for Modern TV Hits", airing such shows as Scrubs, Everybody Hates Chris, and Glenn Martin DDS. Arguably, the shift began with the addition of Taxi to the line-up in 1995, the most relatively modern and (more importantly) edgy show the network had broadcast up till that point.
- The Disney Channel abandoned Vault Disney, The Ink and Paint Club, and most other broadcasts of classic Disney cartoons in order to turn into a preppy, suburban tween-oriented network whose M.O. seems to be "promote every last one of our child stars as the next great actor/singer/songwriter/dancer/Idol Singer". However, this is not so much network decay as it is a reflection of what Disney itself has become in the last several years, making this more of a case of Company Decay. And admittedly, it is a very powerful marketing tool for its mother company.
- Note that, before this period, the Disney Channel was arguably worse, interspersing about three hours of cartoons at 1 AM with hours and hours of QVC-type hawking of Disney merchandise (Minnie Mouse tea set, only three payments of $11.95!) and... Guns N Roses concerts? On Disney Channel? The worst part was that, originally, the Disney Channel was a premium cable service, like HBO or Cinemax, and unlike Nickelodeon, which was basic-cable from its conception — although both channels initially had a similar approach to the programming day. Then, they hit a low point in programming quality just as Nick hit a high point in The Nineties. The only way to stop mass cancellation of subscriptions was to move it to basic-cable. Read that again. Nickelodeon actually forced the Walt Disney Corporation to change a business model. That hardly ever happens...
- Really? This troper remembers a time in-between those when they actually had cartoons during the day and you could find Mickey Mouse somewhere besides the logo. Either that or she has it mixed up with the good days of Toon Disney.
- CNX began as a channel devoted to shows that appealed to the American equivalent of shonen in the mornings and afternoons, with uncensored anime and kung fu movies later at night. However, its Toonami block, aimed at a younger audience, quickly expanded to take over the entire channel. It has recently mutated into CN Too, which is actually marketed as a second Cartoon Network.
- The Playboy Channel probably goes here, in that it's still showing naked people. Originally, the channel showed video Playmate layouts and short, tasteful softcore movies that sometimes actually had well-written, endearing stories. Much like the original's Magazine Decay, the channel's kept the sex and lost the class, and now shows (randomly renamed) hardcore movies and a near-endless barrage of "reality" shows, including more than one that could be described as "Big Brother where they show the sex".
- The homogenization of BET (Black Entertainment Television) following its sale to Viacom (which did not correspond to an increase in production values) led to its decline. They canned their news programs, and started to be more restrictive as to what and who they play on their music block. Back in The Nineties, it was easy for you to be seen on BET if you were black and MTV refused to play you. Nowadays, groups like Public Enemy and NWA — to say nothing of alternative hip hop acts like A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul — wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of being played on BET if they had gotten started today. Mostly because the network has a policy of not wanting to play music that's deemed too intelligent, irrelevant, or over the heads of teenagers (specifically teenage girls). It's become a perfect representation of the modern, hyper-commercialized rap scene, which is more interested in selling ringtones than in actually creating art.
- There's also the persistent rumors that 106 & Park is rigged.
- Two banned episodes of The Boondocks (you can watch 'em on DVD) bash BET for all it's worth. The irony here is that the Executive Producer "Reginald Hudlin" in the credits is the same one who is currently running BET. Contractual obligations keep his name on it, but series creator Aaron McGruder has made his stance on the network clear. "Martin Luther King Jr." called out the network in one episode, and shortly afterwards, the former president of the network killed himself.
- To watch the Travel Channel, you'd think the only reason to travel would be to play poker, to find ghosts, or most importantly, to try the unusual, sometimes disgusting, local foods. See Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, Food Paradise, and Man v. Food. One has to wonder if Travel Channel wishes they were Food Network.
- Food Network began with cooking shows and has branched out into contests and reality shows... but in an aversion, every single one of these still has to do heavily with food and fits the network. Probably because it would be hard to change the formula with a name like Food Network.
- Even things online aren't invulnerable to Network Decay: Illumistream used to be a general health channel on You Tube, and they still do some general health advice videos. Then they started introducing a sex health segment. Fair enough. Then they started focusing more and more on sex health, to the point where it seemingly became their main focus. Hey, it's still health related, so it's still fair. Then they started doing more and more videos on steamy sex confessions with little visible or tangential connection to actually health advice or even sex health advice, almost as if their whole intention now is to turn into a softer-than-softcore version of Penthouse or something. Oh-kay....
- The Latin American version of Discovery Kids is guilty of this. It began broadcasting on the late half of the 1990s with either edutainment shows (like Ghost Writer), ecology shows that didn't fit quite well on Discovery Channel, or science shows mainly geared to early teens and adolescents (i.e. Popular Mechanics for Kids). Then, in the early 2000s, it underwent an extreme shift towards the toddler and kindergarten demographics, much to the chagrin of older fans. Currently, the channel is airing reruns Clifford, Barney and Friends, and The Backyardigans (without argument, the only show they still have that can be enjoyed by all ages) ad nauseam, making it a source of both Snark Bait and hate by the early fans due to the uncalled switch-over. Doki, the channel's pet, doesn't help either on making the channel more palatable for older audiences.
Close Major Shifts That Still Fit The Channel Name
Network Recovery
- Reversed by a recent trend of "vault" cable networks that have actually gone out and defined themselves a niche when they used to be just rerun farms. TNT has repurposed itself as being the drama network complete with the slogan, "We Know Drama," TBS wants you to know that everything they show is "Very Funny", and USA has made a point of acquiring shows that showcase quirky characters to fit its "Characters Welcome" campaign (oddly enough, an awful lot of these are genial detectives). This is probably because these networks would be just like the gazillion other generic networks otherwise.
- Yet they frequently show movies that don't fit the theme — this troper has seen comedies like Galaxy Quest and MIB on TNT and dramas like the Lord Of The Rings on TBS. The ads, however, present them as the network's genre.
- CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) faces a balancing act between popular American shows, which draw advertisers, and Canadian content, which tends to be less popular. Lately, it's made a larger push to get new Canadian shows on the air (Little Mosque On The Prairie, Being Erica, and so on) but you can still catch re-runs of The Simpsons.
- ZTV, who was originally established as a Swedish alternative of MTV, pretty much went down the same line as MTV. In a brave attempt to counter this, however, in 2006 they decided to split the channel up; ZTV would go back to its musical roots, and the new channel TV6 would focus on the programs that had made ZTV decay. Both channels still exist to this day, and neither has decayed.
- MSNBC started as a joint venture between NBC and Microsoft to bring a unique syncronicity between online and cable news. Microsoft pulled out, and the channel floundered for years, with its news programming in last place and prime time filled with true-crime and prison "documentaries". In recent years, these have been replaced (at least on weekdays) by left-of-center opinion to counterprogram the Fox News Channel. Thanks to shows hosted by Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, they became a big player in cable news again. Your Mileage May Vary about the actual opinions, but they're at least behaving like a news network again and not a cheesy ripoff of CourtTV.
- Cartoon Network originally began as a showcase for classic Hanna Barbera and Warner Brothers cartoons. These were eventually replaced by an increasing number of original productions and anime, with the Boomerang network taking over channel's old role. However this was largely perceived as a golden age for the network, as it generated popular shows that broke out of the Animation Age Ghetto (like The Powerpuff Girls and Dexters Laboratory), while helping to fuel the early-2000s anime boom through its now-defunct "Toonami" block. Despite focusing a lot on live-action in recent years, pressure from other Time-Warner executives is forcing the channel to return to its animation roots by greenlighting more animated series, airing old cartoons (like Looney Tunes and Pink Panther), and mixing in their old originals into the schedule. While they still aren't letting up on new live-action productions, they are becoming a tiny smudge on a schedule filled with Golden Age, Silver Age, and modern animation.
Radio
- The WCBS-FM Affair in New York City. For over 30 years, 101.1 CBS-FM was an iconic oldies station in New York, its DJs being local celebrities. Enter Executive Meddling, and in 2005 came JACK-FM, a random music, jockey-less format that focused on the '80s-2000s and punctuated its programming with obnoxious comments by announcer Howard Cogen. To add insult to injury, the former CBS-FM DJs were fired on the day of the flip, without warning. The new station was universally reviled by New Yorkers, with many calling it "Jack Shit FM," and mayor Mike Bloomberg saying he would "never listen to that fucking CBS radio again." It took two years for them to get the message, and in 2007, CBS-FM returned to an oldies format. It can be argued that a bit of decay is still hanging on the station, which had added '80s music to its playlist while cutting back on '50s and some '60s music, but still, this troper is glad to see the station resembling its old self.
- The recent infusion of '80s music on the station, at the expense of '50s music, may be a sign of changing demographics rather than Network Decay. People who grew up in the '80s are now entering middle age, and thus the target audience for an oldies station. Meanwhile, people who grew up in the '50s are now retiring, which means that they no longer have the commute to listen to the radio on. It's the same reason why most music from before The Fifties has been banished to public radio - the target audience got too old to become a reliable market for advertisers.
- The oldies and classic rock formats in general has been undergoing decay for a long time. The passage of time means that the line between "classic/oldies" and "modern" continues to move forward. It's not uncommon to hear music by Guns & Roses, Metallica, Madonna, Michael Jackson, the Black Crowes, or even Nirvana on such stations when it once would have been unfathomable... until you remember that The Eighties was over twenty years ago. It can make a child of the '80s feel really old.
- TOS was a popular hard/progressive rock station in Maine that was mostly listened to for the variety of entertaining DJs and hosts. After changing hands a few times in the late '00s, in late 2008 it was finally bought by the newly formed Blueberry Broadcasting, which completely changed the format to Top 40 with some 80s and 90s thrown in (originally, the only older music TOS played was by hard rock icons like Black Sabbath and AC/DC). Even worse, they fired all of their radio personalities, retaining only Tom O. and Mr. Mike, their morning show hosts (although their show is now heavily sanitized and word on the street is they're close to quitting). They even fired popular DJ Chris Rush, known for his publicity stunts and willingness to try new things and meet new people (including one stunt that actually resulted in him once having his jaw ripped off by a tow truck's hook by accident at a local fair, requiring him to have extensive reconstructive surgery to build a new one using one of his ribs). All of the fired personalities were quickly picked up by competing station WKIT (which is owned by none other than Stephen King), and as the ratings for TOS have fallen, WKIT's have gone up steadily since acquiring TOS' DJs.
- A mainstay for modern rock in Philadelphia was Y100. Overnight (on a weekend, if this troper remembers correctly), the station was switched, with no warning, to rap and R&B. To make it even worse, it was an existing station, just moving to the more popular frequency... and it kept being simulcast on the old frequency for a few weeks. There was an uproar among the previous listener-ship, but no action ended up occurring. Fortunately, the morning show from Y100 was rescued by WMMR, its former competitor, and arguably the only modern rock station left in Philly.
- Sounds a bit like what happened to 99X in Atlanta, another influential alt-rock station, which one random Friday became the Top 40 station Q100, formerly housed at 100.5. At least that switchover was actually discussed in the paper, though...
- The same thing happened in New York with 92.3 K-Rock... twice. First, at the start of 2006, the station switched from its modern rock format (which it had run since The Eighties) to a talk format, with the new name Free FM. This left the largest radio market in the country without a modern rock station. Free FM, anchored by David Lee Roth's So Bad Its Horrible morning show, was a disaster, and K-Rock was brought back on the air in less than 18 months, with Opie & Anthony replacing Roth as morning hosts. So far so good, right? Well, back in March, the station switched again, this time without warning (Free FM had been announced a month prior to the switch), to "Now FM", a pop station in the vein of Z-100. At least this time, New York has a modern rock station to pick up the slack, 101.9 WRXP... which itself switched from a jazz format in February 2008, leaving jazz fans with only NPR and a single AM radio station to listen to.
- This may be the result of the fact that each part of the New York area has its own rock station, which saps listeners from any station that tries to broadcast across the whole area. Northern New Jersey has WDHA, commonly nicknamed the "Jersey Giant" due to its dominance of the ratings in that area, and WSOU, a popular college radio station. The Hudson Valley, meanwhile, has 107.1 The Peak, while Long Island has WBAB. On top of that, there's Q104.3, the classic rock station, which takes away even more listeners.
- In the late 1990s and early 2000s, 96.3 WDVD in the Detroit area sold itself on having the audacity to not play rap. It played a lot of Sheryl Crow, Nine Days, Three Doors Down, and their ilk. Now if you switch to it you're still unlikely to get actual rap, but good luck finding something that's not Nelly Furtado, Justin Timberlake, or the latest Disney pop "artist".
- The AM band used to be the only way to listen to radio, which meant that there used to be far more AM music stations. However, in the '70s and early '80s, most music stations switched to FM, which has a much higher audio quality, and those that didn't found themselves hemorrhaging listeners and shutting down. As a result, countless AM radio stations decayed out of necessity, switching to the news, talk, and sports that now dominate commercial AM radio.
- In Venezuela, most AM stations are still music stations... broadcasting popular music from the 30's to the 80's, about the age they were still relevant before the FM band. The only new music they have, if any, is usually of the folkloric kind.
- Radio Disney uses the AM band almost exclusively for their radio stations. It's a brilliant marketing tactic — the lower audio quality means that listeners will have to actually buy the music in order to hear it as it was meant to be played.
- The Toronto rock station 102.1 The Edge (a.k.a. CFNY FM, "The Spirit Of Radio") has suffered this, especially over the last few years. The station started broadcasting in 1961, and experienced a critically positive reception in the late 70's and early 80's, when it was known as one of the few Canadian radio stations which played alternative music. In the late 90's, the station was bought by Rogers Communications, and became another corporate rock station. Its programming was homogenized to a point that listeners started to rebel against the station, calling in for alternative songs during all-rock countdowns. Another buyout, this time by Corus Entertainment, completed the transfer of CFNY from truly independent to corporate radio that stifled all creativity. Its decline culminated in a round of layoffs in the company, which included two prominent DJ's: Barry Taylor (who hosted the Thursday block of programming, a traditionally dead block that flourished through his charisma and personality) and Martin Streek, who had worked at the station for over 20 years (he was part of the station's success in the 80's) and hosted the weekend "live-to-air" events at Toronto clubs. Shortly after the two men were fired, the station whitewashed their biographies and any trace of their careers from the company's website. A few weeks later, Streek wrote a cryptic status message on Facebook ("So...I guess that's it...thanks everyone...I will see you all again soon (not too soon though)... Let the stories begin.") Soon after, Streek committed suicide, and many called The Edge to task for their non-existent coverage of his death. There may be The Edge, but The Spirit Of Radio has finally left the station for good.
- BBC Five Live began life in 1990 as BBC Radio 5, which had a combination of sports and young people's programmes (including the original radio version of Room 101). Then in 1994 it became the "rolling news" station Five Live. Since then Five Live has gradually become filled with phone-in programmes, rather than actual news.
- BBC Radio 2 and 3 often get accused of this: Radio 2 suffers the "oldies/classic rock" problem mentioned above, while Radio 3 (officially "classical, jazz, world music and arts") is frequently accused of "dumbing down" for classifying modern jazz, folk, or "experimental" music as part of their remit.
- WQBW 97.3 The Brew from Milwaukee, Wisconsin has become a major victim of this trope. While they've remained consistent with their emphasis on '80s rock, they undergone several tweaks to their music format — while keeping their station moniker. The most recent of their tweaks was the excising of a large portion of their '70s classic rock songs, and the addition of '80s pop songs. Interestingly enough, the station continues to air Rockin' '70s on Sunday nights, along with Rockin' '80s.
- The "Morning Zoo" block on music stations could be seen as a form of this with people who listen to the station strictly for the music, even if the block has been on the station from day one. This is especially true of instances where radio stations decide to dedicate more hours of the week to their "Morning Zoo" hosts.
Broad Enough to Avoid Decay
- Animal Planet, which still plays entirely animal-related programming.
- Loosing Cartoon Express aside USA Network, really seems to have gotten better as time went on. Unlike sister network Sy Fy, USA never really had one gimmick or target demographic to cater to. They can get away with showing almost anything and either get high ratings (WWE Raw,Psych) critical acclaim (The4400, The Starter Wife) or both (Monk, Burn Notice).
Close Broad Enough to Avoid Decay
Heroic Aversion
- Perhaps as a response to the dearth of older films on television these days, Turner Classic Movies seems intent on fighting Network Decay to the death, wearing their name and intent as a badge of honor and pride. Movies from 1980 onward are rare, and usually shown to fit a theme block with the older movies (in particular the "31 Days of Oscar promotion" in February/early March, where any movie that had at least an Oscar nomination can qualify for an airing). They now have films largely if not completely abandoned by other movie networks, including silents, live-action Disney films from the 1950s through the 70s, cult titles for its TCM Underground block, vintage one-reel shorts and old promotional featurettes as interstitial programming, etc. Plus, they're good about letterboxing.
- This Troper is grateful that in one of their few deviations from standard programming he was introduced to Hayao Miyazaki.
- It has some original shows... all of them documentaries about classic films, from one about the history of early sci-fi films to a long interview with Woody Allen about all of his films.
- It should also be noted that TCM's birth came about because of TNT's programming shift. TNT was Turner's original classic movie channel. Perhaps there's a lesson here...
- Even more impressive? In A World where every basic cable channel seems to be about "maximizing profit" and squeezing commercials into every nook and cranny (so that you won't change channels, don't you know), TCM steadfastly refuses outside advertising *
the closest they have to commercials are spots for their website, where they sell DVDs and whatnot, and their printed programming guide , runs everything uncut — even if it's rated R or TV-MA — and has been this way from the beginning. This almost insane dedication to task won them a 2008 Peabody Award.
- TCM arriving in Argentina arguably caused the Argentinian channel Retro to decay. Because of TCM, Retro now rarely shows old movies, and the only old movies they show are the ones in color. (See also AMC above.)
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