Last month the Walt Disney Company and Charter Communications reached a landmark carriage agreement that included Charter dropping all but three of Disney’s general entertainment networks, including networks that were still airing original programming and, in the case of FXX, pretty popular original programming at that. As I wrote earlier this week, it’s a major landmark in the linear television bundle being refocused on what linear television is good at, live events such as sports and news, with other networks serving primarily as a platform to premiere content at designated times in advance of appearing on their true streaming-service home, as well as distinct brands to organize such content, while potentially serving as a stepping stone to such streaming services becoming the true heart of the cable bundle. It’s fair to wonder what other networks could be at risk of being dropped by providers if distributors insist on similar terms from the other major programmers.
Although I made my post a month after the whole thing went down, this post is surprisingly timely: earlier this week, after I made my post, S&P Global Market Intelligence put out a report listing the networks they see as being at risk from the major programmers if they end up taking similar deals to Disney-Charter. I actually think they’re way too pessimistic about some channels, but also overlook a number of channels that would seem to be very much at risk, in my view. I’m going to make my own analysis, separate from theirs, about which networks are relatively safe and which ones are at risk. To assist in this endeavor, I’m going to refer to this table from TVNewser showing how many viewers each network averaged in total day and primetime for 2022; for numbers in the 18-49 demo, I’ll be referring to this Variety article which contains more incomplete data, and only includes the top 50 networks across broadcast and cable in primetime.
Comcast/NBC: I’m going to start here in large part because some of the moves they’ve made in recent years suggests that sports networks might not necessarily be safe if their parent company has a potential alternate strategy. Disney kept ESPNU and ESPNEWS on Charter lineups, even though ESPNEWS is pretty much just an overflow channel at this point, so you might think that networks primarily focused on live events would be pretty much immune to being dropped. But Comcast shut down NBCSN two years ago, and followed that up by shutting down Olympic Channel last year. Most of NBCSN’s live sports content ended up on USA, but Olympic Channel had already lost most of its coverage of Olympic sports outside of actual Olympic games to Peacock (and Tokyo in 2021 was the only time Olympic Channel was used to show actual Olympic competition). If a sports network is sufficiently niche, it might not be able to save itself from being supplanted by a streaming service. Considering that since the NBCSN shutdown, NBC has aired cable coverage of the men’s and women’s US Open and Open Championships, as well as the Ryder Cup, on USA, not Golf Channel (not to mention other ways it’s minimized Golf Channel’s brand), it’s fair to wonder if the latter network might well find itself on the chopping block next. (NBC’s contract with the PGA Tour runs through 2030, so Golf Channel might be safe until then, or at least through the 2028 Olympics.)
As NBCUniversal’s main cable network brand for both entertainment and sports content, USA should be safe. Live news not only benefits from the same factors keeping live sports afloat, but is relatively cheap to produce as well, so CNBC and MSNBC should be safe as well. Universo should be safe only because of how NBC uses it as a home for Spanish-language coverage of its sports events that don’t warrant a spot on Telemundo. That leaves Syfy, Bravo, E!, Oxygen, and Universal Kids, the last of which is probably a dead network walking; Comcast bought what was previously PBS Kids Sprout and tried to turn it into their entry in the kids’ network wars, but now Wikipedia lists only three current original series, all oriented towards the network’s original audience of preschoolers, and only BabyFirst ranks lower among all Nielsen-rated kids’ networks in total-day total viewers. The others require more in-depth analysis.
E!, Bravo, and Oxygen are all broadly oriented towards women. Bravo has a very strong lineup of popular reality shows, including the Real Housewives franchise as well as shows like Top Chef and Project Runway, and only four cable networks rank ahead of it in primetime 18-49 viewers, USA not being among them. Bravo is also the only NBCUniversal cable network to have its own hub and be promoted as having its original shows on Peacock. E! airs its late-night E! News entertainment-news franchise as well as live red-carpet specials before major awards shows, as well as some popular reality shows of its own. E! has also been announced as airing Olympic coverage next summer, where it’ll provide the only cable outlet other than USA and Golf Channel during the time CNBC is airing stock market coverage, which is to say virtually the entire time live competition will be taking place in Paris on weekdays. (NBC airing major competition from the Big Three Olympic sports live during the afternoon, while showing they’ve finally figured out that live events belong on linear, will create a further space crunch compared to previous European Olympics.) But its primetime demo ratings, as with Syfy and Oxygen, badly trail the likes of Freeform and FXX that are slated for closure, it’s the weakest of the four by a wide margin in total-day total viewers, and it’s fair to wonder whether it’s really that distinct a brand from Bravo, or whether its programming can be merged into Bravo’s lineup. Then there’s Oxygen, originally NBCUniversal’s attempt to compete with Lifetime but which has since rebranded into a true-crime network. It outpaces the other three in total-day total viewers, but doesn’t even make the top 50 networks in primetime demo ratings, a testament to the older-skewing nature of true crime shows.
Oxygen has started showing up as a 16:9 SD digital subchannel on NBC’s owned-and-operated stations since May of last year, suggesting that’s where NBC sees the network’s future and how it might be able to survive future negotiations with distributors. As for the others, I feel like E! and Bravo could be merged into each other with minimal friction, but it’s not clear to me which brand would survive. E! is the weakest in viewership, but might have the most distinct brand of the four thanks to its entertainment-news and red-carpet coverage, plus the fact that those elements have always been part of the E! brand while Bravo has undergone a drastic makeover from the network that launched Inside the Actors’ Studio. Then there’s the question of whether either network is distinct from USA. You might think they are – neither E! nor Bravo has much in the way of scripted programming, and USA’s sports and WWE content are very much male-oriented compared to the female skew of the others – but USA has only one scripted show at the moment, Chucky which it simulcasts with Syfy, and a number of reality shows, some of which seem to be relatively male-oriented (especially those that feature NASCAR and its drivers) but others of which could well be right at home on E! or Bravo.
What, then, to make of Syfy? It just barely pips out E! for the third-most-watched cable network in the demo in primetime among the NBCUniversal portfolio, and is just barely beaten by Oxygen for second place in total day viewers. Since its renaming to a made-up word (and even before that when it started showing WWE programming), its brand as a home for science fiction and fantasy programming has been drastically weakened and a lot of the library movies it shows are generic male-oriented fare, but the NBCUniversal web site still calls it “a multiplatform brand that super-serves passionate fans with genre programming, events and digital content”, and it has a number of original series all of which fall under the science-fiction, fantasy, or horror genres, as well as a news website focusing on genre content. Merging its content onto USA alone would give that network a decided sci-fi tinge. You could argue that NBCUniversal has room for two male-oriented brands: USA for sports and general male audiences, and Syfy for the nerds. (Syfy is also useful as a place to put WWE programming when it gets pre-empted from USA for sports.)
S&P lists four NBCUniversal networks as potentially being on the chopping block: CNBC World, E!, Syfy, and Universal Kids. (CNBC World is offered in SD only on most providers, and while it technically provides live content and is relatively cheap to provide, I could easily see it being dropped from cable lineups and made exclusive to Peacock, or CNBC’s own in-house streaming service CNBC Now.) I think that’s certainly a plausible outcome, even though when I started I severely doubted that E! was in any real danger while Oxygen was in big trouble. I think E! will remain a going concern through the Olympics, but then I think Comcast will go out in front of the winds of change and have E! and Universal Kids, at minimum, fall on their swords by the end of 2024. That seems to be their MO, not just with NBCSN and Olympic Channel but with networks like G4 as well, and it’s in keeping with Comcast’s nature as a distributor themselves to consider the perspective of both sides of their operations. That would leave Comcast with four general-entertainment networks: two male-oriented brands in USA (sports and general male-oriented or gender-neutral fare) and Syfy (genre and nerd-oriented content), and two female-oriented brands in Bravo (reality and celebrity culture) and Oxygen (true crime). Bravo and/or Syfy would then take on daytime Olympic coverage by the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Paramount: The networks Disney sacrificed in its negotiations with Charter were, broadly speaking, the most popular entertainment networks in their suite, but they also sorted themselves into distinct brands with distinct aims. Disney Channel is a kids’ network, FX is a general entertainment network with adult-oriented prestige programming, and National Geographic is home to nature and sociological documentaries. Notably, Freeform beat out both Nat Geo and Disney Channel in total-day total viewers, and Disney Channel effectively tied its own preschool-oriented spinoff Disney Junior. Freeform and FXX also finished well ahead of Nat Geo in the demo in primetime. If popularity was the only factor determining whether a network survived or not, Freeform would seem to be more deserving than Nat Geo, and if we used popularity to determine what NBCUniversal networks survived or not, Bravo and USA would be the only general-entertainment networks assured of escaping the proceedings. (I kinda felt like Freeform was worth keeping in any case as a home for all-ages and young adult shows that wouldn’t quite have felt at home on Disney Channel or FX, especially if Disney ever decides that the Marvel and Star Wars shows it’s producing for Disney+ should air on linear at some point.) This makes the process of identifying networks on the chopping block more complicated than just how popular they are.
As it happens, Paramount has done the most to clearly identify what networks it would consolidate to if it were put in the same position as Disney. In 2017, before re-merging with CBS, Viacom announced that going forward, it would focus its efforts on six core, flagship brands: MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, BET, Paramount, and… Nick Jr. Disney just sacrificed Disney Junior in its negotiations with Charter and it was a more popular network than Nick Jr. So it’s tempting to wave goodbye not just to Nick Jr, but to all the other networks Viacom brought to the eventual merger, and Viacom did have more networks with marginal popularity without a streaming platform outside cable operators’ own apps, and in some cases weren’t even in HD, than most other major programmers. So I feel comfortable saying goodbye to (deep breath) BET Gospel, BET Her, BET Hip-Hop, BET Jams, BET Soul, MTV2, MTV Classic, MTV Live, MTVU, Tr3s, CMT Music, Logo, TV Land, Nick Jr., Nicktoons, TeenNick, and NickMusic. Whew! That’s a lot, and those aren’t even the only obvious cuts!
Two former Viacom networks give me pause: VH1 and CMT. VH1 is the more concerning of the two, as it only barely finished behind BET in primetime demo ratings and has a number of reasonably popular shows. For the most part, though, these shows – Basketball Wives, Black Ink Crew, Love & Hip-Hop, Wild ‘n’ Out – are at least conceptual fits for BET, or have aired on, or have other installments in the same franchise airing on, MTV, and VH1 is currently grouped within the BET aegis on Paramount’s organizational chart. However, BET seems primarily oriented towards scripted programming with its unscripted fare being more “serious” than the sort of “tabloid-y” reality shows seen on VH1; if Paramount were to sacrifice VH1 it would need to decide whether Basketball Wives and Black Ink Crew were better fits for BET or MTV. (It’s also worth noting that TV Land isn’t that far behind VH1 and BET in the demo as well, although it has not aired original programming since 2019 and is propelled primarily by library content.) CMT is primarily a concern because of the shitshow that would come up from shutting down America’s most prominent network dedicated to rural culture (not to mention the last basic-cable network in the former Viacom portfolio that still dedicates significant amounts of airtime to music videos and music content), but most of its lineup is library programming with limited to no connection to country music or rural lifestyles, and Yellowstone is still airing on Paramount Network. It may well be more likely to survive than VH1.
(Note that at no point did I seriously consider shutting down MTV, even though its lineup has infamously become filled with seemingly nonstop re-airs of Ridiculousness, underscoring the seeming pointlessness of keeping general-entertainment linear networks on the air 24/7 in this day and age. Despite this, though, MTV still has a brand strong enough to continue to sustain the Video Music Awards, not to mention a strong bank of original programming beyond Ridiculousness that could stand to grow if VH1 is shuttered, and it’s actually only barely beaten out by Comedy Central as Paramount’s most popular cable network in primetime in the demo. It’s a testament to the weird place linear television finds itself in beyond live sports and news that a network that fills time outside first-run programming largely with one show may well survive the post-Disney/Charter upheaval intact.)
CBS added three non-premium cable networks in the merger: CBS Sports Network, Smithsonian Channel, and Pop. Schitt’s Creek managed to sustain Pop following its cutting of its last ties to its past as the Prevue/TV Guide channel, but now its entire lineup consists solely of library content and it would appear to be a dead network walking. CBS Sports Network is where Comcast’s shuttering of sports networks is most relevant: it remains non-Nielsen-rated, something that’s increasingly incongruous given the importance of sports to the cable bundle, and most of the non-college sports rights CBS has acquired in recent years outside the broadcast network, including most of the soccer rights that have fueled the creation of the streaming Golazo network, have been acquired as much for Paramount+ as CBSSN. Depending on how easily it can shuffle college rights to Paramount+, I could see Paramount decide to cut bait on CBS Sports Network and move all sports content outside the broadcast network to streaming only. Smithsonian Channel might be in the best shape of the three as its documentary programming fills a unique role in Paramount’s portfolio, similar to Nat Geo at Disney.
It’s an open question how much, if at all, premium networks like Showtime would be affected by clashes with distributors. On one hand, only those people that choose to subscribe to Showtime or The Movie Channel get those networks, so the factor of “paying for networks you don’t want” doesn’t apply. On the other, the massive bank of multiplex channels that built up around premium channels during the 90s seem to have lost their purpose in the streaming age, so I could see them being reduced to just the main channel; even secondary sister networks like the Movie Channel might not be safe, to say nothing of whatever Flix is.
I have MTV, Comedy Central, Paramount Network, BET, Nickelodeon, and Smithsonian Channel as the only Paramount-owned non-premium cable networks in decent shape to survive upcoming clashes with distributors. S&P adds VH1, CMT, TV Land, and CBS Sports Network while putting Smithsonian Channel on the chopping block. I can definitely see CBSSN surviving and I can see a scenario where Smithsonian gets cut, and VH1 and CMT could be kept for reasons laid out above, but TV Land seems like a pretty easy cut to me given its lack of original programming – though it is the 11th most popular network in total-day total viewers. It’s worth noting, though, that Paramount is in more dire financial straits than most legacy media companies; it’s the smallest of the major Hollywood movie studios and sends over a quarter of its market cap to the NFL alone each year in rights fees. It’s already shopped around for a buyer for BET, and I could see the rest of the company being sold off for parts eventually, leaving CBS (and its sub-brands) and Paramount+ as the only remaining consumer-facing distribution brands, possibly joined by Nickelodeon and Smithsonian Channel, ultimately waiting to be bought by someone else. As such, I could see it going down a similar path as Comcast and proactively opt to shut down most of its marginal networks without waiting for them to come up in negotiations with distributors – unless it feels they’re useful as bargaining chips to keep programmers from pressuring them into further cuts.
Warner Bros. Discovery: I did a quick once-over of WBD’s networks on Twitter earlier in the month, but let’s go more in-depth. Of the four cable networks that finished ahead of Bravo and USA in primetime demo ratings, three were owned by WBD: TBS, TNT, and TLC, with ESPN being the fourth. Obviously TBS and TNT were largely propelled by sports and wrestling content, but it’s still a testament to how good a shape WBD’s networks are to survive clashes with distributors. In particular, TBS, TNT, CNN, Discovery, and TLC seem to be pretty much safe, as is NBATV if you count it as a WBD network.
But WBD also has a bunch of marginal networks launched by Discovery to stake out as much territory as they could at the dawn of the satellite/digital cable era; ID has become surprisingly popular, the tenth-most popular network in all of cable based on total-day total viewers, thanks to its true-crime focused lineup, but most of the others are almost textbook examples of cable network musical chairs. I think it’s safe to say goodbye to American Heroes Channel, Destination America, Discovery en Espanol, Discovery Familia, Discovery Life, Cooking Channel, Science Channel, and Motor Trend, plus Boomerang from the WarnerMedia side of the merger. I also think Discovery Family falls into this category; since the merger, it’s largely redundant with Cartoon Network and no longer has any original programming on its own with Hasbro focusing on Netflix as its preferred outlet for new shows based on the properties it owns. CNN en Espanol has woeful ratings but I could see the argument for it having use beyond its baseline popularity. Even the networks I’ve slated for cutting have some time to try and establish an identity before the music stops entirely; WBD says it doesn’t have any carriage agreements up for renewal until 2025, so it can leave all of its existing networks intact until then. With that in mind, that leaves these non-premium networks warranting further discussion, in ascending order of popularity in total-day total-viewers: truTV, Cartoon Network, Magnolia Network, OWN, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, HLN, Food Network, and HGTV, plus non-Nielsen-rated TCM. Let’s focus on the third, fourth, fifth, and to a lesser extent, sixth networks on the list above first.
Magnolia Network launched with much fanfare last year in the former channel location of DIY Network as a joint venture with Chip and Joanna Gaines, former hosts of what had been one of HGTV’s top programs, Fixer Upper. It was announced in 2019 for a 2020 launch, delayed to 2021 due to the pandemic, then further delayed to its eventual launch date. For the network to start losing distribution just three years after launch through little fault of its own would be somewhat chilling, and despite its relatively low ranking in the list above it actually does decently well for itself, ranking 56th in total-day total viewers (out of 126), the highest rated of all the networks we set aside relative to its coverage (except Food Network and HGTV), and having its own hub in the Max streaming service. But it’s not the only ill-timed relaunch of a linear cable network in the past decade (more on that later) and it might not be the only network with its own hub on Max to be shut down. In that light, it’s not clear that it’s not redundant with HGTV.
OWN does not have its own hub on Max but does have a decent bank of both reality and scripted programming; however, its namesake Oprah Winfrey hasn’t really been seen on the channel since 2015 and has been producing programming for Apple TV+ since 2019. The main obstacle to shutting it down is that it’s not clear that its original programming has a natural home anywhere else in the WBD stable, and the company may end up divesting its stake in the network rather than leave its fate in its hands. Animal Planet has a larger base of distribution than most Discovery spinoffs thanks to its relatively early (1996) launch and aggressive distribution strategy landing it a spot on many analog cable lineups and is known for the Puppy Bowl and various original reality and documentary series, and its 36th-place rank in total-day total viewers places it in between two surviving Disney networks in Nat Geo and Disney Channel (with a better rating relative to its coverage than both, though not better than Disney Junior), but it doesn’t have its own hub on Max and I’m just not sure it’s distinct enough from Discovery Channel.
That’s the thing: more than any company we’ve looked at so far, WBD shows how being able to identify distinct brands is important to identifying what networks the company may keep or drop, because so many of its networks focus on reality shows targeting similar audiences. That’s why I isolated HGTV and Food Network for further discussion despite being the sixth and seventh most popular networks, respectively, in total-day total viewers, with only one network not airing live news or sports, Hallmark Channel, ranking ahead of them. But both networks’ original programming fall under the broad aegis of targeting women with reality shows on various aspects of domestic life, so I considered folding them under the TLC banner, though TLC’s reality shows fall more under the “trashy” heading. In the end, both networks have their own Max hubs, have very distinct identities and brands, and are the sort of “set it and forget it” networks that can maintain their popularity throughout the day by having them on as background noise, so realistically they’re probably safe. But that’s not the case for the Travel Channel, despite launching under similar circumstances as Animal Planet, placing a few spots ahead of it (and Nat Geo) in total-day total viewers (while tying Freeform with the same number of viewers spread across more households), having its own hub on Max, and even sneaking onto the top 50 networks in the demo in primetime. The problem is that it’s only vaguely committed to its theme; a lot of its shows focus specifically on food and so would be at home on Food Network, and there’s a lot of paranormal shows on the network as well. I could definitely see it sticking around, but if WBD comes under particularly heavy pressure from distributors, this might be one of the networks it’s quicker to sacrifice.
HLN suffers from a massive identity crisis. Its once network-defining news programming has been reduced to simulcasting CNN This Morning for the sole purpose of fulfilling contracts requiring it to have some news. In its place has come an influx of true-crime programming, especially endless marathons of Forensic Files, but with the Discovery merger that just makes it redundant with ID. ID is the tenth-most popular network in all of cable in total-day total viewers, ahead of TBS and even its nominal parent Discovery, while HLN has less than half that. It places ahead of Travel Channel and Animal Planet, but I’m not sure being “ID 2” is going to be enough for it in the wake of the Disney-Charter deal. WBD is going to need to find a new identity for the network by 2025. But that’s nothing compared to the headache facing the once-mighty Cartoon Network.
Cartoon Network was once one of the most popular channels on all of television, entertaining kids and adults alike with classic cartoons from the Golden Age of animation as well as classic Hanna-Barbera shows that found a new audience and fanbase, before starting a lineup of original cartoons that proved a worthy challenger to Nickelodeon’s slate; just a few years ago it had a number of shows popular among kids with devoted adult fanbases. Once a block expanded from the adult-oriented humor of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Adult Swim grew to not only become its own network that happened to share channel space with CN, but a veritable cultural phenomenon in its own right, serving as the principal challenger to the traditional late-night talk shows and Saturday Night Live. In 2022, though, Cartoon Network came in at only 105,000 total viewers, well behind Nick Jr’s 131,000 or the 154,000 posted by the Disney Channel and Disney Junior, to say nothing of the main Nickelodeon network’s 276,000. CN was closer to the 62,000 viewers of Nicktoons Network than Disney or Nick. Adult Swim’s standing is harder to measure, as it wasn’t broken out on the chart of total-day viewership, and the fact that it finished slightly behind FXX and tied with Freeform in the demo in primetime doesn’t mean as much as you’d think as Adult Swim’s original shows all premiere after midnight, 11 PM at the earliest, reserving primetime hours for reruns of various Fox animated shows (and the occasional rerun of its own Rick and Morty). WBD recently claimed that it was a top-five network in total day in several key demos… but in a way, that only makes the problem worse.
Recently Adult Swim added a new block of programming, and absorbed an existing one from CN, resulting in it now starting at 5 PM seven days a week and running until 6 AM. Adult Swim now takes up more than half the channel space compared to Cartoon Network. This isn’t just symbolic either: the new block Adult Swim introduced consists of reruns of classic Cartoon Network shows from its glory days of the late 90s and early 2000s, while the block it absorbed, “ACME Night”, was billed as a night for popular movies the whole family could enjoy, suggesting WBD may be having trouble selling all-ages ads in Cartoon Network’s space and is instead airing content suitable for all ages as part of Adult Swim. That means, in a very real sense, Adult Swim is now the default, and Cartoon Network might as well be “Kids’ Swim”. Not helping is that, outside of its preschool block Cartoonito, Cartoon Network only has three series in active production, one of which is technically a Max series (plus a fourth in the middle of its final season, a fifth that hasn’t aired new episodes since 2019 but may yet get more, and three to five shows that haven’t yet premiered); Cartoonito actually has five series in active production and three that have yet to premiere. What happens if 2025 rolls around and Cartoon Network’s channel space seemingly exists more for the sake of Adult Swim than it does the network that’s supposed to be its primary occupant?
It’s at this point I should note that my first instinct was to consider truTV to be one of the safe networks… but that’s almost entirely because of the NCAA Tournament, despite its parent company’s failed efforts over the years to acquire additional sports content for it. The network does have a number of reasonably popular comedic reality shows and sneaked into the top 50 networks in the demo in primetime, but its 65th-place finish in total-day total viewers with less than 100,000 to its name is difficult to justify, and it’s not like any of its shows would be out of place on TBS – or, arguably, Adult Swim. S&P considers it to be a network at risk, and while its NCAA Tournament coverage would seem to suggest dismissing that, I can see a scenario where it gets dropped or has its channel space re-appropriated to deal with another network’s problems. The main problem would be what to do with March Madness; the reasons why CBS Sports Network wasn’t considered an option for the fourth channel to air tournament games haven’t changed, and WBD might be reticent to make CBS a more equal partner in the venture in any case. Could whatever ends up being done with HLN include some March Madness games – or, perhaps, could truTV be involved in a partial merger with Adult Swim that includes tournament coverage? Maybe even NBATV could get involved in March Madness – it does include that sport’s future stars, after all (though I’m honestly not sure it’s in more homes than CBS Sports Network).
S&P also considered Turner Classic Movies to be a network at risk, but while recent attempts at cost-cutting at the network did raise some alarms about the network’s future, the massive outcry of support that resulted shows that TCM has enough friends in high places to stay on the air for the foreseeable future. It’s true that TCM doesn’t have ads but isn’t treated like a premium network on most systems, which could make it rather expensive to operate despite running entirely on old library content (though by most accounts the network is quite profitable), but it seems like being acquired by a nonprofit is more likely than being shut down entirely – even though it must be mighty tempting to boil the network down to its hub on Max and incorporate the network’s wraparounds into the versions of its movies available on the service. While we’re on the topic of movie-focused premium-adjacent networks, HBO is in a similar place to Showtime above, with Cinemax playing the role of the Movie Channel.
This is the toughest company for me to get a bead on which networks are vulnerable, both because of how far in the future any renegotiations are and because of how many networks WBD has with unclear identities but decent levels of popularity. Besides truTV and TCM, the only networks S&P targets for potential cutting are American Heroes, Boomerang, Cooking Channel, Destination America, and Science. No mention of the Spanish-language networks, no mention of Motor Trend, not even any mention of Discovery Life, which has poor enough ratings I have to assume it was omitted only because it wasn’t worth noting, or because S&P overlooked its very existence. (Their list of Disney networks at risk consist of all the networks dropped by Charter… except BabyTV, suggesting it is possible for there to be networks at risk that aren’t worth noting. On the other hand, Nat Geo Mundo was among the networks listed.) Personally, I would say right now, the non-premium networks that would come out intact are TBS, TNT, CNN, TLC, Food Network, HGTV, Discovery, ID, Travel Channel, and Cartoon Network/Adult Swim, plus NBATV and TCM, with truTV’s NCAA Tournament coverage stumbling around for a new home among the above, but you could convince me of more or less networks sticking around. (For that matter, losing coverage on some distributors may be less of a death sentence for most of WBD’s networks than most other companies’, unless they lose virtually all their distribution.) Watch this space in a couple years.
Fox: As the cable bundle continued to collapse and Wall Street turned against legacy media streaming services’ massive losses, there came to be a general sense that Fox “fleeced” Disney by selling most of its assets to them, but other than Diamond Sports Group’s ongoing bankruptcy saga (which it’s not clear would have happened the same way had the RSNs remained with Fox), the Charter-Disney deal is the most concrete expression of it. Of all the networks Fox sold to Disney, only two, FX and Nat Geo, remain on Spectrum systems; meanwhile, the cable networks Fox kept all focus on news (Fox News, Fox Business, the new-ish Fox Weather network) or sports (FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network), and as such all of them should survive a carriage showdown intact. S&P targeted FS2 as a network at risk of potential closure, and you can see why as it’s woefully lowly rated – the least-watched Nielsen-rated English-language network owned by a major programmer that hasn’t already shut down (barely beating out NBCSN’s barker slides from the start of the year!) – and because of its history of limited carriage, Fox Business tends to be used as overflow for sports on Fox and FS1 as often as FS2 is. But if ESPNEWS survived the Charter showdown intact, FS2, with about half the total-day viewership of ESPNU, should as well – especially since Fox, with Tubi being the closest thing it has to a streaming service, doesn’t really have any other outlets for the events it schedules for FS2 to begin with. (That said, FS2 might start looking mighty incongruous if most other non-ESPN niche sports networks start going away.)
AMC: Viacom re-merged with CBS; Scripps was bought by Discovery who merged with WarnerMedia; so AMC is the last member of the “non-sports four” standing. It’s a pretty precarious position; the heyday of shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead being among the most popular on all of television seems like a distant memory, and now they just make the company a juicy acquisition target for someone else. The good news, heading into negotiations with distributors, is that AMC hasn’t really cannibalized its content to prop up a streaming service; it does have the AMC+ service with feeds of and content from its networks, but it distributed it through major distributors and other companies’ services like Amazon and Roku before offering it as a standalone offering. Comcast, Paramount, and WBD are really the only companies that face the specific threat of cable companies complaining about them cannibalizing linear networks to fuel streaming services. That might not mean AMC is out of the woods entirely, however.
S&P identifies BBC America, IFC, and Sundance as networks at risk of being dropped, which would leave AMC itself and We TV intact, plus the BBC World News network distributed, but not programmed, by AMC. That We TV would survive isn’t terribly surprising when you notice it actually comes out a bit ahead of AMC in total-day total viewers, with the two being the only two AMC networks to make the top 50 networks in the demo in primetime, while BBC World News is a news network AMC doesn’t actually have to spend money on. Sundance is significantly healthier than the other two, nestled in-between Animal Planet and Disney Channel/Disney Junior in total-day total viewers with 157,000 while BBC America and IFC sit around the 100,000 mark, so let’s start there.
Sundance Channel and IFC launched in the 1990s as rival networks dedicated to independent film, with Sundance being a joint venture of Robert Redford and Showtime Networks and initially launched as a premium channel. AMC bought Sundance in 2008, making Sundance and IFC sister networks, and both networks started moving beyond their roots into more mainstream programming supported by commercials. As far as I can tell, at this point Sundance seems to be primarily focused on true-crime and documentary programming, with some reruns of scripted network procedurals and other things hard to categorize. If it actually defined itself in terms of that type of programming, that’s an identity that could sustain the network and make it distinct from We TV’s more lifestyle-oriented reality shows. IFC also arguably has a distinct identity as a home to scripted comedic shows. BBC America, though? That’s another matter entirely.
Last year, first-run episodes of Doctor Who, which had been BBC America’s most popular show, moved to Disney+. Near as I can tell based on the network’s Wikipedia page, the only currently-produced shows airing on the network are The Graham Norton Show and nature documentaries… and of their library content, the only show actually produced in Britain is Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The rest of the schedule consists of American procedurals and Star Trek shows. The nature documentaries point to a potential identity for the network, but it’s fair to wonder just how committed BBC America remains to the network. I don’t think AMC will necessarily lose any networks as a result of negotiations with distributors, but the Doctor Who/Disney+ deal might be a bad sign for their stewardship of BBC America.
Hallmark: We’ve been through the last programmer to appear on the S&P list, but not the last one worth mentioning. Hallmark Media is especially worth mentioning because they reached a deal to put much of their content on Peacock last year and are the most significant linear cable programmer outside the traditional major ones, with Hallmark Channel, as mentioned above, the fifth-most popular network in total-day total viewers and Hallmark Movies and Mysteries in 15th. The Johnny-come-lately Hallmark Drama channel, though, lags way behind, with only 72,000 viewers six years after its 2017 launch. The popularity of Hallmark Channel and the fact the networks are probably pretty cheap means they might all survive, but if the marketplace becomes especially unfriendly to niche networks and distributors take umbrage at the Hallmark-Peacock relationship, Hallmark Drama might not be long for this world – and neither, for that matter, might be Hallmark Movies and Mysteries, in light of my considering TV Land an easy cut, though it does seem to air some original programming not seen on the main Hallmark Channel.
A+E Networks: Near as I can tell, even though it has the same parent companies as ESPN, the A&E suite of networks wasn’t caught up in the Disney/Charter blackout, nor was there any mention of those networks being part of the eventual agreement. I didn’t consider A&E part of the “non-sports four” but I did conceptually separate them from the other Disney networks even at the time, and their later inclusion in Philo, as well as seemingly being unaffected by the Charter spat, suggests that they’re operated separately from their Disney cousins and can reach their own agreements (even though WNBA and NWSL games have moved between Lifetime and ESPN in the past). S&P doesn’t list them as having any of their networks at risk, but if it considered Fox and AMC worth mentioning, we should look at A&E as well. The good news is that A&E hasn’t done much investment in placing its content on streaming services, let alone cannibalizing its networks to fuel them, and it has some strong brands in its namesake network, History, Lifetime, and FYI. But it also has some extremely niche spinoff networks with very limited distribution and no original programming – Crime and Investigation, Military History, and LRW – that could be at risk if there’s a larger contraction in the linear television market, with Lifetime’s other sister network LMN probably being popular and distinct enough to survive at the moment but potentially being vulnerable if things contract enough. For that matter, I’m not convinced FYI would have survived if the A&E networks had been involved in the Charter showdown, though its content isn’t a perfect fit for any of the other networks (History is probably closest).
And then there’s Vice… oh dear me, there’s Vice. To this point, the least-watched English-language non-sports network in total-day total viewers that I’ve considered likely to survive is Smithsonian Channel at 59,000 viewers, followed by IFC at 100,000. FYI had 53,000 viewers… and Vice chimed in at a whopping 37,000. (Smithsonian’s coverage-area rating of .11 was just barely beat out by Cartoon Network’s .10 for worst among networks I’ve slated for survival; FYI stood at .09 and Vice .05.) Launching Magnolia Network around the time of the pandemic was an odd choice but at least was spearheaded by a group that made their name on linear television; the Viceland network was launched in 2016 as an extension of a brand that had already made their name online with a stated goal of bringing young people back to the linear cable bundle. Originally intended to focus on entertainment and lifestyle programming, the network incorporated content from Vice’s more well-known news and investigative arm starting in 2019, including re-launching the Vice News Tonight show that had aired on HBO on the channel… and then cancelling it this past April. The following month Vice declared bankruptcy in preparation to a sale to its creditors; the sale apparently closed in August, but since A&E and (separately) Disney were investors in Vice, it’s not quite clear how the network was affected. Regardless, I’d be very surprised if the network is still a going concern in two years.
Other networks: I’m focusing here on non-sports non-shopping non-premium non-subchannel (or otherwise broadcast) networks carried on the basic packages of all of YouTube TV, Hulu, and DirecTV Stream (using the Choice package in the last case), as a proxy for the most indispensable networks not already covered. That means Cheddar News, Comedy.tv, Game Show Network, Justice Central, NewsNation, and Weather Channel – not the only networks worth considering, but the only ones universally carried on streaming TV providers. As news-oriented networks Cheddar, NewsNation, and Weather Channel should be pretty safe, though Cheddar also operates as a streaming service and NewsNation is around the level of truTV, which isn’t great. GSN is actually a top 20 network in total-day total viewers and has some original programming, so it should be in good shape. That leaves Comedy.tv and Justice Central, which really means their parent company, Entertainment Studios.
Comedy.tv and Justice Central are, simply put, two of the least-watched networks measured by Nielsen. Justice Central is the more-watched network at a paltry 8,000 viewers; Comedy.tv is part of a four-way tie for the least-watched network still operating measured by Nielsen, and did manage to edge out beIN Sports and Pursuit Channel in total primetime viewers, which is an improvement from how it used to be the undisputed least-watched Nielsen-measured network. (Both networks came in with total-day coverage-area ratings of .01, tied with beIN Sports and Pursuit Channel for worst among surviving networks.) The other networks in the Entertainment Studios suite, other than the Weather Channel, are even less viewed, at one point being lumped into a single network for Nielsen purposes just to make its charts. Most of Entertainment Studios’ networks basically air reruns of shows the company produces for local broadcast syndication; Justice Central benefits from being a platform to air courtroom shows, a reasonably popular genre, while Comedy.tv airs stand-up comedy and interview shows, but the other networks have their types of content pretty well covered on other companies’ channels. Entertainment Studios and its head Byron Allen has managed to muscle its way onto channel lineups, often filing lawsuits alleging racial discrimination, but the blunt truth is, Byron, they aren’t rejecting your channels because you’re black, they’re rejecting them because no one watches them and it isn’t a great time to be running a linear television network that doesn’t have live content anyway. Your company is in good enough shape that I’m sure you’ll be able to make something of it in the streaming era, but I have my doubts it’ll involve any linear networks other than the Weather Channel.
(We should also mention here the independently-owned, primarily Westerns-focused INSP network, which improbably is the eighth-most watched cable network in total-day total viewers, ahead of TNT and any other network airing scripted content – and with a higher coverage-area rating than any general-entertainment network – other than Hallmark Channel, but which isn’t on YouTube TV or Hulu, and requires an add-on from DirecTV Stream.)
Why am I examining such niche networks that aren’t facing the same pressures as the major programmers so closely? Well, let’s consider what a sample channel lineup might look like once everything shakes out. We’ll reserve channels up through 29 for local stations, local news networks, shopping networks, the C-SPANs, and public, educational, and governmental (PEG) channels. (To be sure, a lot of local stations outside the major English- and Spanish-language networks, PBS stations, and general-entertainment stations looking to get a piece of local sports teams are pretty much squatting on spectrum waiting to be forced out and catch a quick payday, and PEG channels are questionably necessary in the age of streaming and YouTube – though when Republicans in Congress so much as raised the possibility of reforming the PEG regime as part of their effort to look into updating the Communications Act nearly a decade ago (!), it resulted in a deluge of mail begging them not to touch it. In any case, government access channels tend to follow the goings-on of state and local government similar to C-SPAN, so they arguably still fit into the new linear-television paradigm.) Reserve channel 30 for a regional sports network (if applicable), then:
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It’s tight, and this doesn’t include subchannel networks, other international networks, other networks from smaller programmers (such as FETV, Newsmax, Up, and TV One), religious networks, primarily-audio music networks, or channel spaces to access on-demand content, and it assumes a reasonably tight definition of what networks get discarded, and it’s kind of arbitrary for me to include FanDuel TV but not Golf Channel or Tennis Channel, but… we’re getting pretty close to being able to fit every channel within two digits. At the very least, we might end up with less than 200.
Interesting take on the Golf Channel here. Golf has an unique audience compared to something that (say) soccer would attract, and in my mind at least, that audience is older and wealthier than the soccer one. Older consumers might be later to the cord cutting game, but some of them are undoubtedly going into that game… my parents included. So maybe when the PGA and NBC come in for contract negotiations in 2028-29, NBC bumps all the Golf Channel events to Peacock (assuming it’s still around) and sunsets Golf Channel. (Of course, if NBC somehow loses all PGA contracts entirely, Golf Channel is dead in the water.)