Logo, an MTV-backed basic cable network aimed at the gay and lesbian community and long in the planning stages, will go on the air next February.
In announcing a Feb. 17 launch date Tuesday, the Viacom-owned MTV Networks provided few specific programming plans, other than to say it will offer a mix of movies, reruns and reality-oriented shows.
Viacom had been discussing a gay cable network since at least 1994, but put it on the back burner because of a weak economy and other priorities. Now, an improved economic outlet has pushed the plans forward.
“We’re excited,” said Joan Garry, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. “Cable television is about niche programming and our niche has been conspicuously absent for a long, long time.”
However, the Traditional Values Coalition announced plans to boycott any Logo advertisers.
Logo will be available on cable systems in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta and San Francisco and is seeking other distribution. Its goal is to be in about 14 million homes by the end of next year.
Tom Freston, MTV Networks chairman and CEO, said offering Logo as a basic cable service would make it a more promising business, despite limitations on language and content that pay outlets like HBO and Showtime don’t face.
Must appeal to diverse communityThe main network geared to gays and lesbians now is Here TV, a pay service available only on satellite TV systems, although it has plans for cable distribution later this year.
Paul Colichman, president of Here TV, said he sees Logo more as a complementary service — and potential business partner — than a competitor.
“We’re very excited because it gives us another buyer for our old programming,” he said.
Logo’s greatest challenge will be appealing to a diverse gay and lesbian community that has high expectations, Garry said.
“The recipe for success for a gay channel is programming vision, access to distribution and a comfort with risk-taking,” she said. “MTV brings those things together. They’re a huge force in the cable industry, so their distribution is strong.”
With affiliated networks MTV, VH1, Spike, Nickelodeon and CBS, Viacom has muscle in the industry that startup companies can’t match. That’s a lesson that Pridevision TV, a gay channel in Canada that has unsuccessfully tried to expand in the United States, has learned.
Logo’s operators say they also want it to be a comfortable place for viewers who aren’t gay. Freston said the timing of Logo’s announcement had nothing to do with the current push toward homosexual marriages.
“This is a network that is not really about politics,” Freston said, adding that the channel’s primary emphasis would be on entertainment.
Logo is looking at working with CBS News for a monthly newsmagazine and perhaps MTV-styled news breaks, said Judy McGrath, president of the MTV Networks Music and Comedy Group. It has deals to acquire more than 100 movies.
The Traditional Values Coalition, with 43,000 member churches, started working on plans for a boycott within an hour of hearing about Logo’s launch, said the Rev. Louis Sheldon, its chairman.
“It doesn’t improve television,” Sheldon said. “It only continues to offer moral anarchy for a very seriously dysfunctional lifestyle.”
Freston, who said he expects the network to break even financially within two or three years, said he doubted there’d be much opposition to Logo. There’s been no resistance from advertisers so far, he said.
“We don’t think it’s indecent,” he said. “We’re not using profanity, we’re not using sex. This is going to be mainstream programming that you see everywhere else, except for the fact that it’s targeted to the gay and lesbian community.”