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gay tv article....

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Ann Rostow, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
Friday, January 18, 2002 / 04:00 PM

A second gay television venture was announced earlier this week, just days after Viacom subsidiaries MTV and Showtime went public with their own plans to launch a channel geared to the gay and lesbian audience.

On Monday, David Mckillop, Michael Airington and Mitchell Galin said that MDC Entertainment Group's Alt1-TV would be ready for viewing by the first quarter of 2003.

Unlike the MTV/Showtime channel, Alt1-TV will be entirely ad-based, and the founders are in negotiations with several cable carriers to include the channel in their packages. Mckillop says his group has gotten "a fairly enthusiastic response," in these discussions.

Both groups agree that the key to success for either venture will lie in developing quality programming. "Programs and content make a network, not the other way around," said Mckillop, who believes that Alt1-TV's emphasis on programming is the venture's greatest asset. All three founders come from a programming and production background, and Mckillop says plans for content are "fairly well along."

Mckillop acknowledges that the two Viacom subsidiaries have a big edge in infrastructure and financing, "but it's all really going to depend on what they put on that channel. I don't think you can get away with putting on reruns of 'Queer As Folk' or 'Brothers.'"

Meanwhile, a recent article in the Ontario Financial Post reports that Canada's four-month-old gay channel, PrideVision, is considering expanding into the American market.

"We have consultants looking at getting us carriage in the United States," PrideVision Vice President Anna McCusker told the Post.

McCusker said the MTV/Showtime venture "is looked upon as very positive for PrideVision," but that any talk of a cooperative relationship between the two operations would be premature.

A review of PrideVision's programming in the online magazine Slate said the channel offered varied, no-holds-barred content and "set an excellent example" for the upcoming U.S. efforts.

PrideVision hit the airways last September and just concluded a long introductory free trial. McCusker said hard numbers for income and subscribers won't be available until late January or early February, but she called the debut "very exciting."