Alpha Repertory Television Service
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (June 2014) |
A&E |
The Alpha Repertory Television Service (ARTS) was an American
History
Early history
By the early 1980s, cable television had reached millions of American households and was starting to draw significant audiences away from the "
ARTS had somewhat lower programming costs than CBS Cable, with fewer (and less costly) original programs. Prime time was normally the most valuable airtime, but not for Nickelodeon – ARTS paid a very low rate to that network for its three evening satellite transponder hours, plus a repeat broadcast at 9:00 p.m. Pacific Time (according to Hearst executive Raymond E. Joslin, ARTS did not pay Nickelodeon at all for the first year, and paid a $1 million fee for the second year and $2 million for the third).[3] Most cable providers that carried Nickelodeon also carried ARTS simply because of the convenience of the single channel feed. These factors combined to help keep the channel on the air more than twice as long as CBS Cable. Nonetheless, despite having a small but affluent audience ostensibly attractive to advertisers, Hearst/ABC could not turn a profit on ARTS. The network had carried limited advertising each hour, typically carrying low-key commercials for luxury products and services; often advertising slots went unfilled.
In 1982, it made a major move when the service launched an independent signal on Manhattan Cable and TelePrompter, which was separate from Nickelodeon, in a package that around the same time fellow Hearst-ABC service Daytime was launched.[4]
Merger with the Entertainment Channel and relaunch as A&E
NBC had been facing a similar problem in finding a sufficiently large audience for its cable network the Entertainment Channel, which launched in 1982 and aired such expensive programming as
That summer, A&E announced that it would move the network to its own dedicated transponder and become a separate 24-hour cable channel to take better advantage of valuable satellite time. The move took place on January 1, 1985, with Nickelodeon expanding part of its programming schedule to fill the time period formerly held by A&E with more teen-oriented programming and displaying a
As a result of A&E's separation from Nickelodeon,
To this day,[when?] A&E survives as one of the most popular cable channels in the U.S.[according to whom?] However while it retained the same arts-focused programming for its first decade-and-a-half as a merged channel, A&E's programming has gradually evolved to bear little or no resemblance to its progenitors (aka "channel drift"), shifting its focus in recent years towards reality, lifestyle and scripted drama series.[5]
References
- ^ "18th Century Woman Airs Sunday" (PDF). Oswego County Messenger. June 4, 1982.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 18, 2016.
- ^ a b c "Ray Joslin 2001 Oral and Video History". cablecenter.org. Retrieved April 18, 2016.
- ^ "Manhattan's cable moves" (PDF). Broadcasting. October 22, 2023. p. 107. Retrieved October 22, 2023.
- ^ a b "A&E television networks, major television networks". www.moviestaff.com. Retrieved April 17, 2016.
- Clarke, Gerald (October 26, 1981). "Cable's Cultural Crapshoot". Time. (archived from the original September 30, 2007)
- Kisselgoff, Anna (April 4, 1982). "Dance View; The Great Giselles Compared". The New York Times; review of A Portrait of Giselle, a film presented by ARTS. (archived from the original April 5, 2009)