I Would Like You (Yes, YOU!) to Buy the TV Guide Channel For Me
Please? It only costs about $400 million, and I know you have that in your checking account.
A number of TV Guide Channel's carriage agreements give cable operators the discretion to move the channel into a digital tier, which could significantly shrink its subscriber base. Its contracts also tend to include low subscriber fees from cable ops, making the channel more dependent on advertising sales for its profitability than most basic cablers. TV Guide Channel's ad sales hit $129 million last year, according to Gemstar-TV Guide's annual report for 2007.
Among the entities kicking the tires on TV Guide Channel is Constellation Ventures, the Gotham-based venture capital fund whose active media investments include music Netco ArtistDirect and the fledgling TV One cabler targeting African-American auds. The channel is not generating any heat among showbiz's usual suspects for cable properties, such as Time Warner, News Corp. and Disney.
The first thing I would do is get rid of the program listings that run in the lower third of their screen. Then I would invest some coin in TV Watercooler (because I like Fugelsang and Strasser, seen above with the very foolish McCain supporter Joey Pantoliano), put together an actual TV news operation and create a nightly show is prime access (or even against the network news programs) that covers TV the way TV should cover TV, completely.
Then I would give a weekly hour to Deborah and Roberta Lipp so that they could discuss Mad Men (maybe air it right at 11 pm Sunday after the show airs on AMC), I would certainly take a couple hours weekly for myself just to make sure you are all watching my favorite shows, and I would start producing originals.
Original comedies and dramas about television, that is.
But only if you'll buy the channel for me. And c'mon, it's a steal.
