They are TV's ghosts — networks that somehow survive with little reason to watch them anymore
Cable television is filled with ghosts
NEW YORK — The list of memorable characters and personalities who entered popular culture through cable television is long: Honey Boo Boo. Tony Soprano. Lizzie McGuire. Don Draper. Jon Stewart. Beavis and Butt-Head. Chip and Joanna Gaines. SpongeBob SquarePants.
Pick your own favorites. Chances are there won't be many more to join them.
Few cable and satellite networks are a force anymore, the byproduct of sudden changes in how people entertain themselves. Several have lost more than half their audiences in a decade. They've essentially become ghost networks, filling their schedules with reruns and barely trying to push toward anything new.
Says Doug Herzog, once an executive at Viacom who oversaw MTV, Comedy Central and other channels: “These networks, which really meant so much to the viewing public and generations that grew up with them, have kind of been left for dead."
As they fade, so are the communities they helped to create.
Pockets of success remain, notably with lifestyle and news programming. And it's not like there's nothing to watch. You'll find more options on Netflix than a diner menu.
Yet something undeniably has been lost. Stewart's triumphant return to Comedy Central's “The Daily Show” this winter only begs the question: Did it really have to be this way?
Cable TV primarily took flight in the 1980s, breaking the iron grip of ABC, CBS and NBC. Essentially the first fragmentation of media, cable brought people with common interests together, says Eric Deggans, NPR television critic.
“People who were previously marginalized by the focus on mass culture suddenly got a voice and a connection with other people like them,” Deggans says. “So young music fans worldwide
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