 This is the SF Productions podcast network Hey network, stand your own lane And I'm mark you can check out our audio podcast how I get my wife to read comics on iTunes or on our website SF podcast network comm in the relentless March to 500 cable channels Yeah, it's vital that each network create an identity that viewers will remember in the morass of the on-screen guide Yes So why do successful networks change our identity or even their name? Perhaps you might end up more successful or you might get lost in the shuffle ESPN is really a rarity now. It's a network that's basically doing what they did on day one Maybe a bigger budget, and they're the same name Yeah, they're and they're sports and they're sports ESPN is is you know synonymous with sports But there are some other networks that have changed lanes over time starting with Bravo in 1980 it actually began as a pay cable network with commercial-free schedule that was heavy on like symphony Ballet and opera. Yeah, like Only ran two days a week sharing the channel with adult pay cable network escapade By the end of the 80s they had converted to basic cable and Then by the early 2000s they moved to reality show format as part of the big reality boom they introduced more diversity starting in 2003 with queer eye for the straight guy and Courted gave viewers going forward with such shows as real housewives that franchise and top chef They introduced scripted shows in 2014 with girlfriends guide to divorce So they went from a pps light to Gay-friendly reality shows. Yes Bravo Bravo 1981 MTV music television depending on who you believe the channel was created to a Amortize the cost RCA generated in a in failed music-based video discs So the old spectra vision with the square thing. They made these video albums and RCA They never really sold So they said we have all these videos. What do we do with them? B expand the local show site on sound that was on Columbus, Ohio's cube two-way cable concept See create expand the local New York show album tracks that was created by the original formatter for MTV Robert Pittman or D expand Michael Ness miss pop pop clips TV show Which was based in a New Zealand series from the 70s. Okay, so one of those four was the Genesis Or all four of them together. Yeah in any case MTV really radically changed TV as a whole You can look at commercials pre and post MTV Before MTV there would regularly be three to four seconds of silence at the end of an ad just showing the product It's just yeah, here's the product. I can't even last yeah That would be heresy today MTV also hugely impacted record sales if you wanted to sell your records You suddenly had to have a music video and back then MTV was all music videos Right. There was nothing else on MTV. Yeah They even had copycat channels. There was the cable music channel Which was one of Turner's networks that never made any money. So MTV bought it and renamed it VH1 By the late 1980s MTV started to move away from music videos They had a fashion show called house of style. They had a game show called remote control and in 1992 MTV invented really the modern reality show with the real world They later did a late night talk show with some guy named John Stewart By the 2000s they were all about reality 2002 the Osborns 2003 punked 2006 my super sweet 16 and the Hills and 2009 the Jersey Shore Music videos have now mostly moved to the internet They're all on YouTube now. Yeah hard-pressed to find a music video on MTV, right? 1983 the Nashville Network launches it started as an attempt to expand the MTV formula to country music MTV had just started like two days earlier their own country music channel CMT the Nashville Network included live shows from the Grand Ole Opry and it quickly changed hands then and expanded into other formats, but all were related in some way to country music 1991 TNN bought out CMT and pushed all music video programming to them in the 90s They moved into southern sports such as hunting and fishing and motor sports and then in 1997 TNN changed hands again and all country entertainment programming was phased out in favor of sports and added roller derby and wrestling 2000 TNN was renamed the National Network not Nashville, but National Network and got into syndicated shows aimed at a younger male demographic 2003 TNN was renamed spike TV later spike In 2011 they expanded their lineup for older males because they were shooting for that elusive 18 to 49 market So they went from country music videos to video game awards Okay 1984 Arts and Entertainment Network aka A&E Began as a three-hour nightly block using Nickelodeon's channel because kids weren't up in order to watch cartoons No, I don't know. Okay. Yeah, you're gonna mention I'm gonna talk about Nick at night Yeah, because they later got their own 24-hour slot and then Nick filled that nightly slot with Nick at night And we'll discuss more about that in a second I always remember that was so confusing to me when I first started watching cable that you know, oh Now we're not Nick Nickelodeon at night. That's A&E. Yeah The formatting Was similar to early Bravo, but then they rapidly moved to syndicated shows like Law and Order and Night Court They also began to do hourly documentaries such as biography Later to get its own channel which later changed as well to FYI a reality show network 2002 A&E jumped into early reality Programming as you'll see a lot of networks did dog the bounty hunter duck dynasty storage wars and true crime shows like cold case files and Then in 2010 in that in 2010's another jump this time into more scripted shows like Bates Hotel Although reality is really still their bread and butter 1984 American movie classics AMC launches began as a premium channel showing classic films only a few hours a day But by 1990 they had moved to basic cable and 24-hour schedule Also in 1990 AMC began this film preservation festival showing lost films and generating interest in saving other otherwise lost films 1998 a program called American pop moved into more modern 50s and 60s movies and they also began adding commercial breaks during movies at that point Which is when I kind of lost interest. Yeah 2002 they expanded their lineup to all movies so there wasn't just classic but all any movie 2007 AMC debuted their original drama series Mad Men which really changed the whole focus of the network over time 2008 Breaking Bad 2011 Walking Dead So all two huge critical and ratings acclaim so they went from old movies to new TV dramas Now I mentioned Nick and Knight earlier it began as I said an overnight block in 1985 to Nickelodeon Because again kids weren't up at night to watch cartoons, right? The mix of classic shows many of which had not been seen in decades made a very popular lineup So popular in fact it was spun off as a separate channel originally called nick at night tv land in 1996 Now I found the grand opening of tv land on youtube. I have it on vhs somewhere. I need to convert it It actually choked me up a little bit They started with really kitschy intros and interstitials to go along with the shows At one point they did this mockumentary That introduced the other actress who played the back of patty duke's head on her show Who was never seen of course and even in the document this mockumentary. You just see the back of her head and she's talking They also created what they called 60 second sitcom skewering tropes of sitcoms One of them was called spin and cutter Was a perfect stranger's esque show with a character saying well. I'm not wearing that These these screen spins and cuts to him wearing it. How do I look? By 1999 they tied for the 10th most popular cable network along with espn In the 2000s the tv land awards began honoring classic shows and stars and they also began Installing statues of classic stars in their fictional home town Now we've I'm kind of on a quest to hit to all of these We visited the fawns in milwaukee and andy taylor and opi in mount airy Aka mayberry north carolina Really need to get to the bob heartley chair and couch in chicago isn't there a mary tyler more one in in minneapolis. Yeah, yeah 2007 the network expands into more recent shows with the more classic shows moving to a late night block putting them in the ghetto 2010 tv land decided to make their own classic style sitcoms new ones making These using these classic sitcom stars hot in cleveland retired 35 2015 tv land joined the model of ffx and began creating more modern shows such as The jim gaffkin show and younger Meanwhile the classic tv reigns have pretty much been taken over by diginets Yes, like me tv, which is really the closest to tv land antenna tv cozy and others I could go on many more examples like sci-fi becoming siffy and showing wrestling Or all the family channel things. Oh, yeah We might even do a second episode of this because there's a lot more examples But you get the idea Yeah, and and really the family channel one just always freaks me out abc family. Yeah, now we're showing like So don't watch abc family now if you're a family. Well, you can't because it's called freeform now So while you're not watching that you can check out our audio podcast how I got my wife dream comics on itunes Or on our website sfpodcastnetwork.com from the pop culture bunker. I'm indy and i'm mark. Thanks for watching