New Competition For Showtime & HBO
HBO and Showtime are about to get some competition in the pay cable world. Viacom, Lionsgate and MGM are launching a new channel for original TV productions and theatrical films. It’s expected to find its way into your home by September 2009.
I think that’s great. The more pay cable competition, the better. However, I’d like to give the executives of this new VLM venture some advice. When you’re a pay cable channel that shows movies, you should be showing recent movies. Not movies that were just so so twenty years ago. “Dirty Dancing?” It wasn’t but so dirty. “Indecent Proposal?” It wasn’t but so indecent. “White Men Can’t Jump?” Give me a break.
And when you show more recent movies, you don’t need to run them into the pay cable ground.
For example, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been skipping through my thirty or so pay cable channels, looking for something new and instead I come across “Independence Day.“ Now “Independence Day” was an okay, rah, rah, summer popcorn movie, but after the three hundredth airing, it gets stale very quickly. Will Smith doesn’t, but the movie definitely does.
Or how about “Akeelah and The Bee?“ A lovely, heartwarming film about a shy girl who dreams of becoming the national spelling bee champ. The first time I saw it, I cried like a baby. Now when I see it, I want to throw something at the screen.
And then there’s “The Truman Show.“ I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen Truman ram that sailboat of his into the wall of his “world.” In spite of the fact that I don’t like Jim Carrey, it’s a very good movie. But kind of like “The Truman Show” itself, it’s on 24/7 and that’s not good for anybody.
I send a mighty big check to my cable company every month to pay for these so-called premium movie channels. It would be nice if they would sometimes put some recent premium movies on them.