How do you tell a broadcast network from a basic cable network? Heck, that used to be easy. If it put on first-run TV series, movies and mini-series every fall, it was a broadcast network. If it ran nothing but old movies and TV series reruns, it was a basic cable network.
But nothing stays the same in the wonderful world of TV, except perhaps the plots of the shows.
Next month, for instance, a new network will be launched that offers an almost steady diet of network reruns like “Touched by an Angel.” But it won’t be a basic cable network. It’ll be PAX NET, a new commercial broadcast network — the seventh in the marketplace. Locally, it will air on WCFC-Ch. 38.
At the same time, look what’s going on with some of the established basic cable networks.
USA has been showing first-run movies on Wednesday nights for several years and earlier this year gave us a hit mini-series, “Moby Dick.” Later this month, it adds a second night of first-run weekly series.
Lifetime also has announced three new weekly series, starting with the Aug. 18 premiere of its first sitcom, “Maggie,” starring Ann Cusack.
In addition, Lifetime has extended its trademark “Intimate Portraits” documentaries about women. The series, up to 60 per year, represents the same kind of franchise for Lifetime that “Biography” has become for the A&E cable network.
TNT, one of the biggest producers of quality TV movies and mini-series, last week dipped into one more area that used to be the preserve of broadcast networks: Reviving old shows as TV movies. TNT is putting Erik Estrada and Larry Wilcox back on their motorcycles in “CHiPs ’99,” a movie based on NBC’s “CHiPs” series from the late 1970s.
Even more interesting is the rising level of quality for basic-cable series. One example: Based on the fall pilots I’ve seen so far — about half of the new season’s programs — the two new USA series are definitely among the best.
The reason basic cable networks are trying to produce more original programs is simple: There’s so much more competition that a network has to have something unique to attract viewer attention.
If that makes the new PAX NET broadcast network seem out of touch with reality, that may be a slight misunderstanding. The people behind PAX NET believe their core viewership will be families run by parents who want only pro-family programs coming into their homes.
Meanwhile, the commercial broadcast networks have been playing around with a standard cable TV strategy: “Double-pumping” shows by putting the same episode on more than once a week. NBC has done that with “Law & Order” this summer.
