Back in the '80s, we used to watch surgical procedures up close on the Lifetime cable channel. That's what they showed for hours on end, until someone got the idea that women's programming was a better idea. The "M" in MTV once stood for "music." HLN was once Headline News. In the future, new networks should know better than to use their name as a brand, because it's easier to change programming than the name. Geek Mom takes a look at six networks, how they've changed, and why their names no longer make sense. In at least once case, it's because the network came with strings attached, like when Disney bought the Fox Family Channel for its ABC network. They had big plans for the new channel.
They’d rename it XYZ (as in the opposite of ABC) and sell it to a younger, edgier audience. Too bad nobody read the contract that said the word “family” had to stay in the name forever.
Why? For that, we rewind to its beginning as Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network Satellite Service in 1979. That religious beginning followed the network through multiple sales, each of which has been required to continue broadcasting Robertson’s The 700 Club, hence the reason that show is now bookended by the disclaimer, “The following/preceding CBN telecast does not reflect the views of ABC Family”as well as the network’s slogan of the last few years, “A New Kind of Family.”
Read more network stories at Wired's Geek Mom. Link -via Kottke
I used to love the nature and science shows on Discovery. the song "Bad Touch", which includes the lyrics "You and me baby ain't nothin' but mammals
So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel", sounds amusingly dated now.