TV Land September 2013 --

[RobbieG]

Originally Posted by EmoJoe

Sure, there's still around, but look at how many shows have abandoned or cut down on their niche - MTV, VH1, TLC, Discovery Channel, History Channel, ABC Family, Bravo, AMC, ect. (I would argue even Animal Planet is playing fast and loose with the animals theme with their reality shows and whatnot too). The ones that have kept their niche are pretty wide-reaching - TBS "we air comedy!", Lifetime "television for women!", TNT "we air dramas!", and of course the kids' networks because that brand of speciality is always going to be around because you can't except 7 year olds and 35 year olds to have the same taste in television. Nevertheless, it's an interesting trend and it makes me wonder why niche networks don't seem to be as profitable anymore.

Personally? I really don't care what TV Land airs. I just find it funny how people here get outraged at the smallest of schedule changes, as if these cable networks are catering only to them. I get being upset that TV Land isn't airing classics as much as they used to. I don't get complaining about Friends being on too much because you don't like it. TV channels are businesses that have to worry about making money, not your personal tastes. Luckily, we live in an age where you can watch basically any show you want at any time so there's less and less need to rely on them for your television needs. Hence why I don't get *all* of the complaining.

Lifetime has always been "Television for women," so that hardly counts as a reduction in speciality. I do agree Animal Planet shows more reality TV but so do they all, and it's still animal-related. I think TBS and TNT are actually more specialized now than they used to be. I don't think it's been proven that niche networks are not profitable anymore; that's just an assumption on your part.

I didn't complain about Friends being on TV Land too much; I complained about TV Land showing deliberate and obvious bias against Everybody Loves Raymond by moving the "originals" block from 10 p.m. to 9 p.m. so that Raymond would be preempted instead of Friends. That originals block has been at 10 p.m. for years, so moving it just when Friends starts airing is quite revealing about the personal biases of the people who work at the network.

These changes are being made not for business reasons but to satisfy the personal biases of the execs and employees of the network. THAT is why I am complaining.

As I said before, you are wrong that I can watch any show at any time. That is a ridiculously FALSE statement. If TV Land drops The Andy Griffith Show, there is no other TV network I can watch it on.

This thread is about TV Land and seemed like a good place for viewers to commiserate about the changes. If you don't care what airs on TV Land, then skip the thread.

[RobbieG]

Originally Posted by EmoJoe

Personally? I really don't care what TV Land airs. I just find it funny how people here get outraged at the smallest of schedule changes, as if these cable networks are catering only to them. I get being upset that TV Land isn't airing classics as much as they used to. I don't get complaining about Friends being on too much because you don't like it. TV channels are businesses that have to worry about making money, not your personal tastes. Luckily, we live in an age where you can watch basically any show you want at any time so there's less and less need to rely on them for your television needs. Hence why I don't get *all* of the complaining.

In one of your earlier posts you said "Yay more 30 Rock!" If you can advocate more of a show, I guess I can advocate having less of one, even though that was not really what I was doing, as I explained in my previous post. It seems pretty clear you like a lot of these modern shows and thus it's easy for you to be cavalier about the changes on TV Land.

I would like to watch the following shows again on TV:

What's My Line
Ryan's Hope
Falcon Crest seasons 4+
Mayberry, RFD
Nanny and the Professor

You say I can watch basically any show I want at any time. These shows are not available on DVD, so how can I watch these shows? I can list many, many more...so your statement that I can watch basically any show at any time is false.

[EmoJoe]

Come on, let's be honest - even if TV Land was airing exclusively classics, they probably wouldn't be airing those shows. I get that you want to see those shows but no TV network is going to air shows that haven't been in syndication in years and make a profit off of them.

[RobbieG]

Originally Posted by EmoJoe

Come on, let's be honest - even if TV Land was airing exclusively classics, they probably wouldn't be airing those shows. I get that you want to see those shows but no TV network is going to air shows that haven't been in syndication in years and make a profit off of them.

Actually, TV Land HAS aired Nanny and the Professor--that's where I first saw it. It aired them at one time on Saturdays.

My point is your breezy, dismissive statement that you can "watch any show any time you want" is false.

[RobbieG]

Originally Posted by EmoJoe

Come on, let's be honest - even if TV Land was airing exclusively classics, they probably wouldn't be airing those shows. I get that you want to see those shows but no TV network is going to air shows that haven't been in syndication in years and make a profit off of them.

Also, as I have said before, I was not so much complaining as I was LAMENTING the fact that TV Land seemed to be favoring shows I don't like and seemed to be cutting shows I do like. Other viewers have posted discontent when TV Land cuts one of their shows; some have posted what they would like the lineup to be. I don't always agree with their choices but I never said they had no right to do so. This just seemed like a good place to vent and commiserate.

You say you find it funny when people in these forums get outraged--as I said before, I was not angry so much as I was lamenting. I was not "outraged" about the network moving toward shows I hate and away from shows I like. I have more anger about the fact that the changes are probably due to the personal biases of the employees rather than due to business decisions, and I have more anger about the inconsistency of their schedules.

But can you point to other posts of yours where you've cut these "outraged" people down the way you have me? Or could it be you're targeting me because the shows I am sorry the network is favoring are ones you really like, and that angers you, that someone might not like all the "great" shows you like? It seems to me you like most of these modern shows so maybe all your "outrage" at the "outrage" is more personal than you would like us to believe. You say I cannot expect the network to cater to my tastes (which true enough, although I never had any such expectation). But you cannot expect my lamentation to conform to YOUR tastes, either. Who are you to be telling people what they can talk about?

[RobbieG]

Originally Posted by TVFactFan

yeah TV Land is basically like 30% classic TV and 70% everything else


I don't think the channel will ever be 0% classic TV

I hope you're right that it's never 0%. I wish it were 70% classic and 30% everything else. I didn't mind it at first when they started adding modern shows, because some change is good for the network, whether it's cycling in some modern shows or even changing the classic ones they show. When I began getting disappointed is when it looked like they were moving to the point that there might not be ANY shows left I liked.

[EmoJoe]

lol. You're taking this more seriously than I am. I don't care how you feel about shows that I like. I rarely watch TV Land as it is, and if they stopped airing 30 Rock it would have very little effect on my life, I have the whole thing on DVD anyway. I don't care how you feel about their line-up. I'm just saying, why waste your time getting angry over something you can't control? But if you want to, then go ahead. You have every right to!

[RobbieG]

Originally Posted by EmoJoe

lol. You're taking this more seriously than I am. I don't care how you feel about shows that I like. I rarely watch TV Land as it is, and if they stopped airing 30 Rock it would have very little effect on my life, I have the whole thing on DVD anyway. I don't care how you feel about their line-up. I'm just saying, why waste your time getting angry over something you can't control? But if you want to, then go ahead. You have every right to!

Thank you! But as I said, I was not so much angry as I was disappointed. Not the same thing. I think I did say "TV Land Sucks!" which I have generally avoided saying, but I decided to throw it in to join in the chanting of that phrase by others in this thread, not because I am really angry.

I saw this post in the "TV Land R.I.P." thread in these forums:

Originally Posted by TVFactFan

I would love for the tv land channel to be finished one day LOL That would be beautiful

That certainly seems harsher than anything I have said--all I said was I was disappointed that they seem to have a bias against shows I like such as ELR and that I didn't understand them adding shows that already air on so many other networks. Someone else in this thread said essentially the same:

Originally Posted by Stuck In The '70's

What I get angry about is tv channels changing what they originally were made for. In TV Land's case it is classic tv. Most of the shows they picked up are airing on local channels or other cable channels or have done so for years.

And others have posted entire lists of what they think the lineup should be. Yet I am the only one you accuse of "outrage" and of expecting TV Land to "cater to my personal tastes"--an accusation that is untrue and was made without foundation. My tastes in TV has always on the "road less traveled" so I have low expectations that a network will have lots of programming I will enjoy, but I was disappointed that the few shows I did like seem to be getting pushed out.

I don't think it's unusual or abnormal to express disappointment when a network you like drops the shows you like. I'm glad I found this thread in which to vent. I don't try to vent in the TV Land forums because I heard they got so many posts with negative comments at one time that they shut down the message board. I don't know if it ever came back, but the fact that TV Land got so many negative comments, and the fact they shut the boards down, says something about the people who work at the company, and perhaps their willingness to suppress dissent supports my conjecture that the programming is more about what the employees there want than what is a good business model or what the viewers want.

Venting has been somewhat cathartic for me, as it probably has been for others in the forums as well. It's not about getting the network to change--which is why I say the accusation that I expect the network to cater to my tastes is untrue--it's just about commiseration.

If you don't care what TV Land airs and you already have all of 30 Rock on DVD, then why say "yay more 30 Rock" when you hear it has been added to TV Land? I guess, even when you can "basically watch any show you want at any time," you can still express positive or negative comments about a show a network has chosen to air. At least, you did. And that's what I did.

[RobbieG]

I see Friends is not airing this week at 10 p.m. on TV Land; they have gone back to airing four episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond from 9 to 11 p.m. Although I am not broken up about it, contrary to some interpretations of what I have said previously, I was not campaigning to see Friends removed entirely from the network. I was lamenting what appeared to be deliberate manipulation against ELR by moving the originals block up to 9 p.m. all of a sudden so that no ELR aired at all on Wednesday nights.

If TV Land was airing Friends because it's one of the most popular shows of all time (which I agree it is) and it's a good business model (which it might be), why have they removed it? This seems to support my conjecture that it is not the popularity of a show, or good business practices, which guide their decision making.

This does support my biggest complaint about the network which is the erraticism of their schedule. If they removed Friends because it "wasn't doing well"--well, they hardly gave it time to catch on with viewers! Much like airing 'Til Death for only two weeks before pulling it.

I did wonder why TV Land was airing Friends when so many other networks, including sister network Nick at Night, were airing it. I understand the argument that if something is popular they might want to air it on TV Land too, but if the show is already airing on many other networks, it might be hard for TV Land to take some of that audience away from those other networks. As Captain Kirk said in "The Trouble with Tribbles," "too much of anything...isn't necessarily a good thing." And that extends to huge blocks of shows I like as well, so I'm not being hypocritical about it.

I agree with the earlier poster who said if they're going to add modern shows they could at least try to find some not airing a lot already on competing networks.

[TVFactFan]

Originally Posted by RobbieG

I see Friends is not airing this week at 10 p.m. on TV Land; they have gone back to airing four episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond from 9 to 11 p.m. Although I am not broken up about it, contrary to some interpretations of what I have said previously, I was not campaigning to see Friends removed entirely from the network. I was lamenting what appeared to be deliberate manipulation against ELR by moving the originals block up to 9 p.m. all of a sudden so that no ELR aired at all on Wednesday nights.

If TV Land was airing Friends because it's one of the most popular shows of all time (which I agree it is) and it's a good business model (which it might be), why have they removed it? This seems to support my conjecture that it is not the popularity of a show, or good business practices, which guide their decision making.

This does support my biggest complaint about the network which is the erraticism of their schedule. If they removed Friends because it "wasn't doing well"--well, they hardly gave it time to catch on with viewers! Much like airing 'Til Death for only two weeks before pulling it.

I did wonder why TV Land was airing Friends when so many other networks, including sister network Nick at Night, were airing it. I understand the argument that if something is popular they might want to air it on TV Land too, but if the show is already airing on many other networks, it might be hard for TV Land to take some of that audience away from those other networks. As Captain Kirk said in "The Trouble with Tribbles," "too much of anything...isn't necessarily a good thing." And that extends to huge blocks of shows I like as well, so I'm not being hypocritical about it.

I agree with the earlier poster who said if they're going to add modern shows they could at least try to find some not airing a lot already on competing networks.

I think it's called keeping up with the times. for example, in 10 years TV Land will probably be airing tv shows that started on network during 05-12 and after since they are currently airing shows from the 93-00 era.

[RobbieG]

Originally Posted by TVFactFan

I think it's called keeping up with the times. for example, in 10 years TV Land will probably be airing tv shows that started on network during 05-12 and after since they are currently airing shows from the 93-00 era.

Actually, they are already airing a show from the 05-12 era: 30 Rock.

But if they're keeping up with the times, why did they drop Friends, which is in the 93-00 era?

[TVFactFan]

Originally Posted by RobbieG

Actually, they are already airing a show from the 05-12 era: 30 Rock.

But if they're keeping up with the times, why did they drop Friends, which is in the 93-00 era?

Maybe TV Land considers it too old and want to focus on shows from 2000 and after

[RobbieG]

Originally Posted by TVFactFan

Maybe TV Land considers it too old and want to focus on shows from 2000 and after

[James28]

TV Land is so dysfunctional, what is wrong with that cable channel? Even if I was a fan of 30 Rock, I wouldn't watch it on TV Land; should have waited until 2018 to put it on their cable channel.

[EmoJoe]

Didn't TV Land air Scrubs while it was still on the air? I'd say any notion of them being a classic TV only network went out the window when that happened.