Two Players
By Staff -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/21/2005
| LOGO | HERE! |
| Launch: June 30, 2005 | Launch: 2000 |
| Investor: Viacom | Investors: Undisclosed |
| Business Model: Advertiser-supported channel for basic digital cable; formulating plan to expand into video-on-demand | Business Model: Pay-per view VOD, pay-per-month SVOD and premium channel (Cablevision charges $7 for a month of Here! SVOD; Dish Network charges $4 per movie; DirecTV charges $10 per month or $6 for 3 hours). |
| Distribution: At launch, will be in some 10 million cable homes with digital-basic service, including Adelphia, RCN and Time Warner Cable. MTV is in final negotiations with Comcast and is also in talks with DirecTV and Dish. | Distribution: Company claims 25 million satellite and cable homes, including DirecTV, Dish, Adelphia, Cablevision. |
| Programming Highlights: | |
| • Noah's Arc: Logo's first scripted series: a comedy/drama that looks like Sex and the City, except that it's about four gay African-American men in West Hollywood: struggling screenwriter Noah, counselor Alex; clothing-store owner Ricky and college professor Chance. | • Here! Family: Covers topics of interest to gay parents and their children. Hosted by Michelle Darné, former publisher of defunct And Baby magazine for gay parents, which folded last year after a three-year run. |
| • My Fabulous Gay Wedding: Actor/comedian Scott Thompson and wedding planner extraordinaire Fern Cohen help gay and lesbian couples plan the wedding of their dreams. | • Dante's Cove: Soap about a group of young gay men and lesbians living in a peaceful beachside community with a supernatural past that comes alive to haunt them. |
| • Documentaries: Include Beautiful Daughters (about a transgender production of The Vagina Monologues), Gay Fraternities and Sororities, Gay Republicans, Gay Rodeo, Gay Rugby and In the Name of Allah (what it's like to be gay or lesbian in the conservative Muslim world). | • The Complex: Five sexy, single lesbians live in a courtyard apartment setting that sounds a lot like Melrose Place. The network says the women are “coy, catty, hilarious and flawed.” |
| • Cruise: A reality series from Bunim-Murray (producer of The Real World and The Simple Life) with stories that play out over the course of a seven-day cruise. The happy couple celebrating 20 years together, the newly out man from Iowa traveling with his mom, and lesbians looking for love all set sail together. | • Third Man Out: A series starring Chad Allen (of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman) about Donald Strachey, the tough, streetwise and gay detective featured in the mystery-novel series by Richard Stevenson. |
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