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| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| Programming | |
| Picture format | NTSC |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | CBS |
| History | |
| Launched | October 12, 1981 (1981-10-12)[1] |
| Closed | December 17, 1982 (1982-12-17) (1 year, 66 days) |
CBS Cable was an early but short-lived cabletelevision network operated byCBS, Inc., dedicated to the lively arts (i.e. symphony, dance, theatre, opera, etc.). It debuted on October 12, 1981[2] and ceased operations on December 17, 1982.[3]
CBS Cable was a personal project of CBS founderWilliam Paley, who hoped it would blaze a trail for cultural programming in the then-emerging cable television medium. Its program offerings were ambitious and often critically praised. Nevertheless, the network struggled, and ultimately failed, largely because of the reluctance of many cable systems across the United States to give it carriage, limiting severely its ability to attract both viewers and advertisers for its costly lineup of programming. Its program offerings, while critically hailed in their own right, frequently overlapped cultural, literary and historical programs broadcast over the air in prime time byPBS in nearly every television market. Further, cable systems in the early 1980s had far more limited channel capacity than they do today (usually the standard thirty-five channels in most cities). CBS Cable was competing for channel space by appealing to a select and relatively small upscale audience, while other networks coming on line at the same time such asMTV andESPN promised larger and more broad-based viewership and therefore got cable operators to carry them far more easily. MTV and ESPN thrived and gave rise to additional companion channels within a short time, while the CBS Cable channel folded after just over 14 months in operation.
CBS made another effort to launch a cable network using the CBS name,CBS Eye On People, which launched in 1997, featuring mostly biography programming and programs from theCBS News archives, along with old episodes of60 Minutes and other CBS newsmagazines. However the effort proved to be unsuccessful, and in 1998 CBS sold its stake in the network toDiscovery Communications, which rebranded it as Discovery People before utilizing the channel slots acquired in the deal for their other networks.
The CBS Cable name was used for three years as the name of the network's cable division, after the 1996 purchase of The Nashville Network (now the general-interestParamount Network) andCountry Music Television fromGaylord Entertainment, along with CBS' existing stakes in theregional sports networks Midwest Sports Channel in theTwin Cities/Milwaukee (now split intoBally Sports North, serving Minnesota and theDakotas, andBally Sports Wisconsin forWisconsin, purchased in 1992 by CBS as part of their acquisition of Midwest Television, the owners ofWCCO-TV and Green Bay'sWFRV-TV) and the Home Team Sports network in theBaltimore/Washington market (nowMonumental Sports Network). TNN and CMT were folded intoMTV Networks after the 1999 merger withViacom, with the sports networks sold to other parties shortly after the merger.
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