Lifetime (TV channel)

Lifetime is an American basic cable channel that is part of Lifetime Entertainment Services, a subsidiary of A+E Global Media, which is jointly owned by Hearst Communications and The Walt Disney Company. It features programming that is geared toward women or features women in lead roles. As of November 2023^[update], Lifetime is available to approximately 63,000,000 pay television households in the United States, down from its 2011 peak of 100,000,000 households.

As of November 2023, Lifetime has garnered nominations for 63 Emmy Awards, eight Golden Globe Awards and 20 Critics' Choice Movie Awards.

There were two television channels that preceded Lifetime in its current incarnation. Daytime, originally called BETA, was launched in March 1982 by Hearst-ABC Video Services. The cable service operated four hours per day on weekdays. The service was focused on alternative women's programming. The following year, the Cable Health Network was launched as a full-time channel in June 1982 with a range of health-related programming.

Lifetime was established on February 1, 1984, as the result of a merger of Hearst/ABC's Daytime and Viacom's Cable Health Network. A board for the new network was formed with equal representation from Hearst, ABC, and Viacom, and the board elected Thomas Burchill as the new network's first CEO. It was not an initial success, reportedly losing $36 million in its first two years of operation, and did not become profitable until 1986. The channel suffered from low viewership, with a poll reportedly finding that some TV viewers erroneously believed it carried religious content.

In 1985, Lifetime started branding itself as "Talk Television", with a nightly lineup of talk shows and call-in programs hosted by people including Regis Philbin and Ruth Westheimer (known as "Dr. Ruth"). In the process, the creators dropped the apple from the logo.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Lifetime devoted itself on Sundays to the airing of in-depth medical programs—and advertising—for physicians under the banner of Lifetime Medical Television (LMT). As early as 1990, however, plans were floated to move LMT to another channel, with TLC and CNBC being considered. Lifetime began programming Sundays on August 1, 1993.

In 1988, Lifetime hired Patricia Fili as its head of programming. In the first three years of her tenure, she changed 60 percent of Lifetime's programming, by her own estimate. In addition to overhauling Lifetime's signature talk show, Attitudes, by hiring a new producer and refocusing it on current women's issues, Fili acquired the rights to syndicated network hits like Moonlighting and L.A. Law. She also oversaw the production of the first Lifetime movies ever made, along with carrying the final three seasons of the Blair Brown–starring dramedy The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd from NBC after the network canceled it. The network also showed movies from the portfolios of its owners, Hearst, ABC, and Viacom. In 1991, reporter Joshua Hammer stated, "Considered one of cable TV's backwaters, [...] Lifetime network was replete with annoying gabfests for housewives and recycled, long-forgotten network television series, such as Partners in Crime and MacGruder and Loud. [...] Under Fili's direction, Lifetime has gone a long way toward shedding its low-rent image."

Douglas McCormick became the network's president in 1993. He moved to make Lifetime a seven-day-a-week network by ending Lifetime Medical Television after nearly a decade of existence, and the next year, the channel relaunched with a new tagline, "Television for Women". Lifetime began airing a limited amount of women's sports coverage, including the WNBA and the America's Cup, in which it sponsored the first women's crew team to compete. McCormick also strengthened the network's ties with women's organizations, such as the National Organization for Women, and began airing public service announcements about women's issues, such as breast cancer awareness.