Posted on 04/24/2007 10:13:36 AM PDT by lowbridge
Cable network, TV LAND, has committed to hosting a movie night. After 11 years on the air the inclusion of movies is an attempt to save the channel from failure.
On April 29th 1996 a new cable channel aired named TV LAND. TV Land, owned by MTV Networks, is programmed with re-run shows mainly from the 50's, 60's, 70's and a few from the 80's. Such shows consist of classics like: I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke, The Andy Griffith Show, Green Acres, The Aadams Family, Knight Rider, and many more. However what was once an interesting concept quickly became a consistent low score in the ratings.
"Friday Night Movies" is the title for this movie night event and will kick of this month. The first batch of movies will be shown in succession and consist of films such as: White Men Can't Jump, Weekend at Bernies, and Basic Instinct. Such titles may seem odd to fans of the network who tune in for their classic re-runs only to find Sharon Stone killing people with an ice pick. However, this same group of people apparently isn't large enough or dedicated enough to help the dropping percentages that the Nielsens rating system tracks. Future movies to be aired will be: Pleasantville, Caddyshack, National Lampoons Vacation, The Blues Brothers, and Beetlejuice.
(Excerpt) Read more at associatedcontent.com ...
I’m probably missing something here. I thought that with hundreds of channels on cable TV, that any individual channel will have low ratings, because they are “narrow casting” to a niche audience. Maybe someone can fill in more details. I guess I thought ratings for a niche channel didn’t matter that much.
What is going to save Nik at Night? showing Rosanne, Cosby And Fresh Prince every night, All night Aint gonna do it. Who watches?
With every spare show from the past now on DVD, is there any point to having networks running old shows?
Uh oh. The prospect of no more Gunsmoke and Andy Griffith is quite troublesome.
I love old TV shows. But every time I turn to TV Land, they’re showing Andy Griffith. Nice show, don’t get me wrong. But once in a while I’d like to see something else. I rarely go looking on TV Land anymore.
Not everyone can afford the prices of a boxed set of one or more seasons of a classic tv show. One month of sattelite or cable: arond thirty bucks. Season one of any tv show: Around 30 bucks (or even much more). With Sattelite/Cable you get more for your money.
And the movies they list are some of the same ones that get played all the time on other channels.
Dont forget, no more endless reruns of Bonanza. The horror!
Nobody. And it's N2N's fault for showing Roseanne, Cosby, Fresh Prince, etc. Instead of the gems they used to air, like Bewitched, Mr. Ed, I Love Lucy, etc.
They do show episodes of Star Trek (TOS) as well, but it seems like they only pick episodes out of a pool of maybe 15 or 20 of the original 79. And some of the ones they do show are far from the best ones.
They need a little more variety on that channel, but not movies. Bring on “Get Smart!”
So their answer is to show bad movies?
I used to tune in to AMC when it meant quality classic movies. Now they show recent crap like Catwoman.
And what does Basic Instinct have to do with classic tv? I mena, the least they can do is run movies that have some sort of connection to classic tv like McHale’s Navy (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058336/) any one of the Gilligan tv movies, The Brady Bunch movies, etc (Pleasantville is the exception since it’s a spoof on classic 50s tv).
I'd like to know which show goes for 30 dollars a season. Even a season of South Park goes for 40 bucks minimum. I think I saw ER at about 60 to 70 dollars per season. And if you're interested in Star Trek (TOS or TNG) you're looking at $120 per season.
If the latter is the case they should be aware of the fact that older boomers would flock to such shows given the worthless garbage that's shown elsewhere on TV *and* we've got *tons* of money to spend on cars,vacations,financial services and Viagra.
I’d watch if they’d show Charlie Chan movies....
IMHO, the problem with TVLand is that they stopped showing the real classics. They are showing shows that are in syndication on plenty of other channels.
I miss when they showed the old shows. The black & white shows. I stopped watching Nick at Nite for the same reason. They had me when they showed Mr. Ed and Donna Reed and shows like that. They lost me, though. Fresh Prince and Roseanne aren’t old shows to me.
Besides that, pretty much all shows are available on DVD now. That doesn’t help their cause.
Now it’s TVLand’s turn.
Do you watch it? They need to make a profit or the channel will disappear. If they have to play Basic Instinct to get some adult interest than that is what they want to do. I doubt it will work, but this is Capitalism and is necessary.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.