Niche networks break the mold

When the Sci Fi network launched 10 years ago, it was best known for airing endless reruns of “Battlestar Galactica,” along with the umpteenth TV airing of “Star Wars.” Hard-core sci-fi geeks, it seemed, had found a channel all for themselves. Around the same time, Cartoon Network became the 24-hour hub for fans of nostalgia cartoons, and nothing but. If Bugs was your boy, this channel was your toon boon.

So it went in the early ‘90s, when cable channels were launched regularly, and the operating wisdom was that narrowcasting was the way to success. After all, such early successes as ESPN, CNN and Lifetime showed it was possible to be successful on cable targeting sports fans, news junkies and women, respectively. But no longer. As Sci Fi and Cartoon Network demonstrate on their decade anniversaries, to thrive now, even the most targeted networks have to broaden their perspectives and raise their ambitions.

Sure enough, reruns of “Battlestar Galactica” -- a TV retread of “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” -- are gone from Sci Fi, replaced by a brand-new epic from none other than Steven Spielberg. The new signature for the channel is tonight’s debut of the 10-day, 20-hour, three-generational family saga “Steven Spielberg’s Taken,” Sci Fi’s most adventurous programming attempt yet.

With the filmmaker as one of the executive producers, “Dante’s Peak” screenwriter Leslie Bohem writing the script and some top film and TV directors handling individual episodes, the series is an ambitious undertaking with a darker, more sinister view of alien visitations than Spielberg offered in either “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” or “E.T.”

(Sci Fi hasn’t entirely shed its early habits: The channel’s other signature at the moment, beyond “Taken,” is marathon airings of “The X-Files.”)

This year’s other 10-year-old, Cartoon Network, also expanded beyond simply recycling Turner Entertainment’s catalog of vintage cartoons. These days, it’s as well known for original series, including “Dexter’s Laboratory” and “The Powerpuff Girls.”

Buoyed by a decade of growth from original programming and movies, Sci Fi and Cartoon Network can celebrate their 10-year anniversaries as shining stars among the top niche-targeted cable brands that have learned the importance of creating original, signature programs.

They are hardly the only channels to have learned that lesson. Think of what “The Shield” has done for FX, “Real World” and “The Osbournes” for MTV, “Emeril Live” for the Food Network (which celebrates its 10th anniversary next year) or “South Park” for Comedy Central.

And there are more new channels on the way. As attendees will learn at this week’s Western Show: Broadband Plus in Anaheim, the cable industry’s largest trade show, 57 new networks are hoping to launch within the next calendar year. The National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. notes such new aspirants as APE-TV (Anthropology Programming and Entertainment), the Puppy Channel, the Diversity Network and the Anti-Aging Network, three channels devoted to martial arts and two to the United States military.

All are hoping to benefit from the thirst for programming in the 500-channel broadband environment that is emerging.

“There was a perception about the channel, that it was very geeky, that it was a rerun channel and that it was for boys,” says Sci Fi President Bonnie Hammer, “but we did an awful lot of research and found that there are so many women who are into science fiction. So what I had to do was educate the population to the fact that science fiction is much broader than you think.”

Buttressing the brand had been the goal for Hammer since she assumed the top job in 2001, a banner year for Sci Fi, which reaches 80 million homes. The network had expanded its original series programming with “The Chronicle,” “Farscape,” “Stargate SG-1” and the miniseries “Frank Herbert’s Dune,” which won two Emmy Awards. By next year, the channel will add a female-lead adventure series, “Firestarter: Rekindled,” a spinoff of its popular Stephen King miniseries, and the half-hour animated “Tripping the Rift” to its original series schedule.

Tonight’s debut of “Taken” has already proved to be a word-of-mouth coup for the network. “We started what we call our ‘chatter class screenings’ last month,” says Hammer, “and people have been really surprised at the level and the quality. The reactions have been: ‘This is the kind of thing we would have expected to be on HBO.’ ”

Actually, the miniseries was never intended to air anywhere else, says Darryl Frank, co-head of DreamWorks Television: “The genesis of the project stemmed from a past friendship between Barry Diller [chairman and chief executive of Vivendi Universal, which owns Sci Fi] and Steven. Barry approached him and DreamWorks about doing something for their channel.”

Cartoon Network entered the cable arena backed by the muscle of Turner Entertainment (the AOL Time Warner division that owns the channel) and its library of characters from Hanna Barbera, Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes and MGM, which produced the Tom and Jerry series. But the network, now in 81.1 million U.S. homes and 145 countries worldwide, established itself with such series as “Dexter’s Laboratory,” “Powerpuff Girls” and “Johnny Bravo.”

Cartoon Network has continued to add franchises, including programming for adults, with such offerings as “Toonami,” a three-hour afternoon adventure series block; “Adult Swim,” for adults 18 to 34; “Cartoon Cartoon Fridays”; and “Cartoon Theatre,” a weekend destination for animated features.

Mike Lazzo, Cartoon Network’s senior vice president of programming and production, wants to avoid being too rigid in defining the network. “If we start limiting things and have too many rules, then we are behaving unlike cartoons, which tend to break rules.”

That’s in line with its commitment to acquire young, fresh voices to help create the channel’s unfettered tone and to create relationships with top design schools, such as CalArts design school and the Rhode Island School of Design. The strategy proved successful when the network hired young gun Genndy Tartakovsky to create Cartoon’s first original series, “Dexter’s Laboratory.”

“With Cartoon Network, they were looking for more undiscovered talent, people that may have had a hard time getting in,” said Tartakovsky, who debuted the four-time Emmy-nominated “Dexter’s Laboratory” on the channel in April 1996, guiding it to become one of Cartoon Network’s top-rated programs before he moved on to create his follow-up series “Samurai Jack.” “It became a great opportunity to do something. And as I got into it, I realized that they were also offering the creative freedom. They were letting the creators make the shows.”

“That’s why I’ve stayed here,” adds Craig McCracken, creator of the Emmy Award-winning original series “The Powerpuff Girls.” “With a bigger network, they have to make sure they hold on to their place on the mountaintop and ... don’t get pushed off, so there’s less of a desire to try new things. It’s not about climbing up the hill and enjoying the trip and seeing where it takes you.”