Gay TV network retreats to the closet
by Eric Erickson
Thursday, 22 March 2001
Dish Network subscribers may finally get their gay TV, but only after the new channel changed names reportedly to satisfy executives at the satellite network who objected to using the word 'gay' in promotional materials.
More than a name change? As the Gay Television Network, the channel’s ads trumpeted gay programming. As the Triangle Television Network, 'gay' is omitted in favor of 'alternative lifestyles.'
The people behind the Gay Television Network originally said the channel was scheduled to launch last November through the Dish Network, a satellite cable subscription service based in Littleton, Colo. The start-up date was pushed back to January and then to February, when Dish publicly denied a formal relationship with GTN.
In an interview last week, the gay network’s founder, Frank Olson, said the channel, based in Palm Springs, Calif., is now scheduled to launch on April 4, but this time as the Triangle Television Network, under a renewed partnership with the Dish Network.
“They didn’t like us calling it the Gay Television Network for their TV guide and things like that,” Olson said about the name change. “So, to make compromise so we could get things moving forward, we compromised to call it the Triangle Television Network.”
Olson said that GTN, now TTN, has 4,000 subscribers signed up to receive the signal through Dish Network for an extra $19.95 a month. Olson says all that TTN has to do to finalize the deal with Dish is make “a couple deposits,” which he says are ready to be made.
TTN’s contact at Dish, Eric Sahl, confirmed confirmed the planned start date of April 4. Still, Sahl said the relationship between Dish and TTN is not yet finalized and that TTN has yet to make the final financial deposits.
Sahl went on to say any advance publicity about the renewed relationship between Dish and TTN could squash the deal entirely; something TTN’s paid consultant, Renee Schenck, confirmed on Friday.
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Despite the confidentiality agreement, Triangle Television sent faxes last week to Southern Voice and a number of other gay publications announcing the new launch date and seeking "trade advertising," under which the publications publish the ads for TTN at no cost and then receive a fee for every subscriber who joins the network. Schenck said he was unaware of the ad campaign and refused comment on whether it violated TTN's confidentiality agreement with Dish.
The new ad campaign for Triangle Television bears striking differences from the trade ads published last year and in early 2001 for the Gay Television Network. The GTN ads featured a headline proclaiming, “Gay-TV is out of the closet,” and featured the word “gay” 15 times.
The new ad campaign for TTN never mentions the word “gay,” instead calling TTN the “first television channel for America’s alternative lifestyles.”
The network even changed its Web site address, from www.wearegaytv.com, to www.triangletelevisionnetwork.com.
Sahl refused comment on the name change or any other details about the Dish Network's partnership with TTN, referring all other inquiries about TTN to the Dish Network’s director of communications, Judianne Atencio.
Atencio would not comment about Dish’s negotiations with TTN, the projected start date or why Sahl said a published report about the new network could cancel the deal with Dish.
Atencio would also not comment about the channel’s new name, which one gay activist calls a subliminal pseudonym.
“It’s like a secret hand shake type of thing,” said National Gay & Lesbian Task Force Communications Director David Elliot, adding the triangle is a popular symbol within the gay community, deriving from the pink triangles worn by homosexuals in Nazi concentration camps. The symbol is less widely known in mainstream culture.
Elliot said he would rather see the network use "gay" in its name, but he doesn’t fault TTN for the change, nor does he think the network is turning its back on gay viewers.
“I think it’s more complicated than that,” Elliot said. “It seems like they had to closet themselves for a reason, and I think that it speaks to the larger challenges that we as a movement face when we’re trying to operate in a culture and to a media that’s not very friendly to our interests," Elliot said. "I wouldn’t put all the blame on them here from what it sounds like.”
When contacted about the change in promotional plans for the cable channel, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a media watchdog group, had tougher words for TTN and Dish.
“GLAAD is disappointed that a media company that wants to market to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community has taken out all references to the community,” said Kevin McClelland, GLAAD's Atlanta-based regional media director.
“We encourage everyone to contact Triangle Television and the satellite provider, and we plan on running this in our national GLAAD alert,” he said.
Rocky road to airwaves
This isn’t the first time negotiations between Dish and TTN have engendered controversy. TTN, then known as the Gay Television Network, ran advertisements in gay publications nationwide last winter, highlighting the partnership with Dish.
In response to the ads, Dish issued a press statement denying any contractual relationship with the gay network.
“Dish got a case of homophobia,” Olson said in a January interview, remaining confident, then and now, that the gay channel would eventually launch on the Dish Network.
Olson says TTN’s programming for America’s “alternative lifestyles” will include coverage of gay pride parades, gay rodeos and a slew of gay themed movies.
The service will cost subscribers $19.95 a month, on top of regular charges to receive the Dish Network. Olson says TTN will not take any money from subscribers until May.
Action Info
Dish Network
http://www.dishnetwork.com
Dish Network
c/o EchoStar Communications
Michael Dugan, President
5701 S. Santa Fe Drive
Littleton, CO 80120
Triangle Television Network
1000 E. Tahqultz Canyon Way,
Palm Springs, CA 92262
Phone: (760) 322-9707
http://www.triangletelevisionnetwork.com
subscriptions: 1-866-438-4298
office: 1-760-322-1217
“The first month you’re not going to be charged, except through Dish. The reason is we need to start building up customers,” he said. “The $19.95 isn’t charged because we’re greedy, the $19.95 is the cost of almost $400,000 a month for the satellite time.”
When it launches April 4, Olson says TTN will present six fresh hours of programming a day, repeated overnight. Over the following three months, that six hours will expand to a full programming day.
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