Gay cable TV is in the pink
By Joshua Chaffin
Published: January 9 2006 18:46 | Last updated: January 9 2006 18:46
When Sumner Redstone, chairman of Viacom, endorsed the notion of a gay and lesbian cable television network, viewers soon got Logo. With the backing of Viacom’s MTV Networks, the largest and most powerful collection of channels in the cable universe, it was beamed into millions of homes around the US.
An unexpected beneficiary of Mr Redstone’s pronouncement two years ago was Frank Olsen, a little-known broadcasting entrepreneur from Seattle. For more than a decade, Mr Olsen had been toiling to start his own gay cable network. Despite spending $12m from his own pocket, there was not much interest until Mr Redstone chimed in.
“You would be amazed how many people listen when Sumner Redstone speaks,” Mr Olsen recalls. “The whole thing changed.”
Indeed, after launching last July, Mr Olsen’s network, Q Television, is now emerging from the muddle of independent cable networks desperately seeking distribution. Q is available in over 3m homes, and is expecting to lock up distribution deals for 15m to 20m more by the end of this year.
A turning point came in November, when Time Warner Cable, one of the largest operators, awarded Q a so-called “hunting licence”, which has allowed the network to approach its 30 regional divisions around the country to seek distribution. So far, that has brought Q to such diverse markets as Manhattan, Houston and – as of this month – Lincoln, Nebraska.
“I think probably even the Q TV people were surprised they got such a nice response here,” says Beth Scarborough, the president of Time Warner Cable in Lincoln.
One could point out that Mr Olsen, who has dubbed himself the “king of gay media”, had been working on Q for more than three decades. After selling the family bakery, Mr Olsen used the windfall to buy radio stations in the early 1970s. In addition to rock and roll, and news and talk radio, Mr Olsen also began to run gay programming.
The shows were reasonably popular, he claims, even though the broader environment was not hospitable. “The advertisers were always worried about how many customers they would lose for every one they attracted,” says Mr Olsen.
A lot has changed since then. The mainstream media is now full of gay characters and gay programming, from television’s Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Will and Grace to the film Brokeback Mountain, a cowboy love story that has become an unlikely Oscar front-runner. Companies such as Volkswagen have launched advertising campaigns specifically geared toward gay and lesbian customers.
The economics of cable have also evolved. As the industry matures, operators are looking for niche networks that can add incremental subscribers who might later be enticed to buy add-on services, such as internet connections.
“Cable operators see themselves as supermarkets, and they have to stock their shelves for everyone,” explains Carol Hinnant, vice-president of sales and marketing.
Rather than shooting for a broad audience, Q is only hoping to sign up 1 to 2 per cent of the households in which it is available. Unlike Logo, it is not available as part of a basic cable package. Instead, viewers must request it for $7.95 per month, as they would HBO. “It’s very important that we be invited into the home,” Mr Olsen says.
While it does not offer pornography, that distinction allows Q to be more risqué in its approach than Logo, which Mr Olsen dismisses as “a little vanilla”.
A third gay network, Here, also launched last year, selling its programming in a video-on-demand format.
While gaining access to the New York and San Francisco markets was a milestone for Q, some of its best success has come in smaller markets, such as Portland, Maine, which has never been known for having a high gay population.
Far from being surprised, Mr Olsen notes that more than 60 per cent of his target audience lives in rural areas. Q is all the more appealing to them because its coverage can link them to Gay Pride parades in San Francisco they might not otherwise attend. “We can be a bridge,” he says.
As it enters new markets, Q has also relied on local gay and lesbian networks and grass-roots marketing to try to reach its modest subscription goal.
In November, when it launched its service in the university town of Syracuse, New York, for example, the company threw a party at a local gay bar. The event, which coincided with the university’s annual Homecoming Weekend, honoured a Q presenter, Scott Withers, a Syracuse alumnus who had been elected the university’s Homecoming King in 1995.
“What a difference 10 years makes,” the invitations read. “Syracuse’s Homecoming King is now the queen of gay television!”
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