Forget new fall shows. Cable TV is rolling out new fall networks.
USA is launching the Sci-Fi Channel on Sept. 24. And Ted Turner is launching the Cartoon Network Oct. 1. They are offering 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week programming targeted at fans of science fiction and cartoons, respectively.
At a time when the traditional broadcast networks continue to downsize and lose audience, cable keeps on expanding and winning more and more viewers.
Overall growth of 5 percent in prime-time audience for basic cable last year was not as great as it has been in previous years, but it was still growth. And it comes at a time when the traditional networks are popping champagne corks over losing less audience than they had the year before or merely holding onto what they had. Basic cable now has a 19 percent share of the prime-time audience -- almost triple what it had five years ago.
The days of almost exponential growth for the industry appear to be ending, along with predictions that one or more of the networks is about to be driven out of business by cable, but there are still individual stories of great growth within the business.
The A&E (Arts and Entertainment) channel saw its audience grow 33 percent in the first quarter of the year compared with the same period in 1991. From 1990 to '91 its ad revenues rose from $49 million to $69 million. A comparable jump is expected when final figures are available for last year.
And for almost every such action, there is a reaction. The prime-time audience for PBS, the broadcaster whose programming is most like that on A&E, shrank 9 percent last year. The two now vie for the same English programs, and A&E is attacking PBS with fierce counterprogramming -- like the 13-part "House of Elliot" (from the BBC and Jean Marsh of "Upstairs, Downstairs"), which is running against Masterpiece Theatre on Sunday nights.
Cable's great advantage over the broadcast networks is that it ++ was designed for narrowcasting, or niche programming. On the business side, cable networks can exist -- in fact, were built to thrive -- on a sliver of the audience that a broadcast network needs. On the viewing side, the narrow focus of cable channels allows them to speak to the cultural diversity of the American audience in a way no broadcaster could ever hope to.
