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Channel drift
Channel drift or network decay refers to the gradual shift of a television network away from its original programming in order to target another more profitable audience, or to broaden its viewership by incorporating less niche content. This often results in a shift from informative or artistic quality programming aimed at educated viewers toward sensational, ratings-based or reality-formatted programming designed for the entertainment of a mass audience. Channel drift frequently features the incorporation of infotainment, reality television and heavy advertising into the channel's lineup.
Networks primarily focused on a particular topic, such as History Channel, tend to add shows that the channel's management feel that a larger audience wants to see, leading to additional profits. By producing lower-quality, more accessible programming, they can increase their ratings, viewership and revenues. The degree of channel drift can vary: some of the nonconforming programming may retain some degree of association with the channel's original purpose (such as in the case of the History Channel, Pawn Stars, American Pickers, and Top Shot, or Animal Planet with Tanked), while other programming may have no association whatsoever (such as Ax Men and Ice Road Truckers).
Channel drift can also result from the acquisition of sports rights or reruns of popular television series that would otherwise not fit the channel's format; Outdoor Life Network, for instance, acquired the rights to the National Hockey League in 2005, so the network began transitioning toward a general sports network known as NBC Sports Network (NBCSN). Conversely, WGN America abandoned its expensive sports packages in 2014 as part of its drift from a Chicago-centric superstation into a nationally oriented general entertainment channel; WGN America eventually started a gradual transition away from entertainment programming (structured in a way to fulfill contractual commitments to existing syndicated programming) to adopt a cable news format as NewsNation in March 2021.
A channel may rebrand itself to more accurately reflect its new content. Sci-Fi Channel changed its name to Syfy for both trademark reasons and to allow a stretching of the network's definition of appropriate programming to include content such as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit reruns and ECW professional wrestling. Another example is the conversion of Warner Bros' Court TV to TruTV, which allowed it to show more reality-based programming (though initially retaining a law enforcement focus, such as repeats of World's Wildest Police Videos) and slowly phase out their advertiser-repelling legal system and courtroom programming. This process ended in October 2009 when the remaining courtroom analysis programs transitioned to CNN.com's legal news section and occasional court coverage from CNN Center on the mainline channel. TruTV then aired competitions, hidden camera prank shows, and even the first three rounds of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. TruTV was further reformatted to a more conventional reality network with a strong emphasis on comedy on October 27, 2014, and then to comedy programming full-time in 2016 with the addition of scripted programming. Court TV was revived as a digital subchannel network in 2019. Other examples include the drifting of The Learning Channel, which has officially renamed itself under the three-letter orphan initialism "TLC" since its transition to primarily reality television series, and that of the Travel Channel, renamed to the "Trvl Channel", which abandoned its destination-themed shows for paranormal programming.
MTV Networks (now part of Paramount Skydance) were an early example of channel drift. Music Television (as MTV was originally known) was originally devoted to popular music videos upon its launch in August 1981, but began adding reality programs and other entertainment geared toward a young adult audience in the 1990s, beginning a gradual progression toward its current focus of reality and scripted programming. Music videos on the main channel were eventually limited to overnight and morning time periods, and were eventually pushed to spinoff networks MTV2, then to MTV Hits. MTV2 itself gradually drifted from an all-music video format to include reruns of MTV programs, original series, and acquired off-network sitcoms; In Fall 2016, MTV Hits was later discontinued in favor of NickMusic.
Video Hits One likewise began as an outlet for adult contemporary music before transitioning to a Black-aimed pop culture channel as VH1; Country Music Television drifted to Southern culture and general rerun programming as CMT. The Nashville Network, perhaps the most dramatic, drifted to general entertainment format as The National Network and then to a heavily male-oriented program lineup known as Spike, only to drift back toward general entertainment in 2015 and become the Paramount Network in 2018.
While Nickelodeon has largely remained a children's-aimed channel throughout its history, its late-night Nick at Nite programming block (which for Nielsen ratings purposes is a separate channel from Nickelodeon) has drifted greatly from airing classic television (first from the Golden Age of Television, later expanding to shows from the 1960s and 1970s), to more recent shows still airing in local syndication, to its current focus on teenaged and young adult audiences similar to that of ABC Family (now Freeform). Nick at Nite launched TV Land as a spin-off channel due to its increased focus on more recent programming (as well as the elimination of non-sitcom programming on Nick at Nite), only for TV Land itself to eventually shift to more recent programming and even original programming. In recent years, networks such as Cozi TV and MeTV have emerged to fill this gap with their programming being primarily 1950s–1960s television shows; even those networks have left older content to early hours in their broadcast day for more recent content. Retro Television Network is the most prominent network still focused on 1950s and 1960s television shows.
Nickelodeon's cable channel Nicktoons is another example of channel drift, though that channel had already been an overflow channel for Nickelodeon. In 2014, Nicktoons added sports content to its lineup to little viewer interest, but the block continued as three of the programs (NFL Rush Zone, WWE Slam City and Wild Grinders) were produced by sports leagues or to promote Viacom personalities on other networks (for Wild Grinders, MTV host Rob Dyrdek). For a time, Nicktoons' schedule has begun to feature live-action sitcoms on a cyclical basis, depending on the current output and success of Nickelodeon's animated series. As of mid-2024, animation-focused spinoff Nicktoons became entirely dedicated to reruns of SpongeBob SquarePants.
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Channel drift
Channel drift or network decay refers to the gradual shift of a television network away from its original programming in order to target another more profitable audience, or to broaden its viewership by incorporating less niche content. This often results in a shift from informative or artistic quality programming aimed at educated viewers toward sensational, ratings-based or reality-formatted programming designed for the entertainment of a mass audience. Channel drift frequently features the incorporation of infotainment, reality television and heavy advertising into the channel's lineup.
Networks primarily focused on a particular topic, such as History Channel, tend to add shows that the channel's management feel that a larger audience wants to see, leading to additional profits. By producing lower-quality, more accessible programming, they can increase their ratings, viewership and revenues. The degree of channel drift can vary: some of the nonconforming programming may retain some degree of association with the channel's original purpose (such as in the case of the History Channel, Pawn Stars, American Pickers, and Top Shot, or Animal Planet with Tanked), while other programming may have no association whatsoever (such as Ax Men and Ice Road Truckers).
Channel drift can also result from the acquisition of sports rights or reruns of popular television series that would otherwise not fit the channel's format; Outdoor Life Network, for instance, acquired the rights to the National Hockey League in 2005, so the network began transitioning toward a general sports network known as NBC Sports Network (NBCSN). Conversely, WGN America abandoned its expensive sports packages in 2014 as part of its drift from a Chicago-centric superstation into a nationally oriented general entertainment channel; WGN America eventually started a gradual transition away from entertainment programming (structured in a way to fulfill contractual commitments to existing syndicated programming) to adopt a cable news format as NewsNation in March 2021.
A channel may rebrand itself to more accurately reflect its new content. Sci-Fi Channel changed its name to Syfy for both trademark reasons and to allow a stretching of the network's definition of appropriate programming to include content such as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit reruns and ECW professional wrestling. Another example is the conversion of Warner Bros' Court TV to TruTV, which allowed it to show more reality-based programming (though initially retaining a law enforcement focus, such as repeats of World's Wildest Police Videos) and slowly phase out their advertiser-repelling legal system and courtroom programming. This process ended in October 2009 when the remaining courtroom analysis programs transitioned to CNN.com's legal news section and occasional court coverage from CNN Center on the mainline channel. TruTV then aired competitions, hidden camera prank shows, and even the first three rounds of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. TruTV was further reformatted to a more conventional reality network with a strong emphasis on comedy on October 27, 2014, and then to comedy programming full-time in 2016 with the addition of scripted programming. Court TV was revived as a digital subchannel network in 2019. Other examples include the drifting of The Learning Channel, which has officially renamed itself under the three-letter orphan initialism "TLC" since its transition to primarily reality television series, and that of the Travel Channel, renamed to the "Trvl Channel", which abandoned its destination-themed shows for paranormal programming.
MTV Networks (now part of Paramount Skydance) were an early example of channel drift. Music Television (as MTV was originally known) was originally devoted to popular music videos upon its launch in August 1981, but began adding reality programs and other entertainment geared toward a young adult audience in the 1990s, beginning a gradual progression toward its current focus of reality and scripted programming. Music videos on the main channel were eventually limited to overnight and morning time periods, and were eventually pushed to spinoff networks MTV2, then to MTV Hits. MTV2 itself gradually drifted from an all-music video format to include reruns of MTV programs, original series, and acquired off-network sitcoms; In Fall 2016, MTV Hits was later discontinued in favor of NickMusic.
Video Hits One likewise began as an outlet for adult contemporary music before transitioning to a Black-aimed pop culture channel as VH1; Country Music Television drifted to Southern culture and general rerun programming as CMT. The Nashville Network, perhaps the most dramatic, drifted to general entertainment format as The National Network and then to a heavily male-oriented program lineup known as Spike, only to drift back toward general entertainment in 2015 and become the Paramount Network in 2018.
While Nickelodeon has largely remained a children's-aimed channel throughout its history, its late-night Nick at Nite programming block (which for Nielsen ratings purposes is a separate channel from Nickelodeon) has drifted greatly from airing classic television (first from the Golden Age of Television, later expanding to shows from the 1960s and 1970s), to more recent shows still airing in local syndication, to its current focus on teenaged and young adult audiences similar to that of ABC Family (now Freeform). Nick at Nite launched TV Land as a spin-off channel due to its increased focus on more recent programming (as well as the elimination of non-sitcom programming on Nick at Nite), only for TV Land itself to eventually shift to more recent programming and even original programming. In recent years, networks such as Cozi TV and MeTV have emerged to fill this gap with their programming being primarily 1950s–1960s television shows; even those networks have left older content to early hours in their broadcast day for more recent content. Retro Television Network is the most prominent network still focused on 1950s and 1960s television shows.
Nickelodeon's cable channel Nicktoons is another example of channel drift, though that channel had already been an overflow channel for Nickelodeon. In 2014, Nicktoons added sports content to its lineup to little viewer interest, but the block continued as three of the programs (NFL Rush Zone, WWE Slam City and Wild Grinders) were produced by sports leagues or to promote Viacom personalities on other networks (for Wild Grinders, MTV host Rob Dyrdek). For a time, Nicktoons' schedule has begun to feature live-action sitcoms on a cyclical basis, depending on the current output and success of Nickelodeon's animated series. As of mid-2024, animation-focused spinoff Nicktoons became entirely dedicated to reruns of SpongeBob SquarePants.