By David Bauder, AP Television Writer
> PASADENA, Calif. --In the fast-moving world of technology,
> Fox is the tortoise and CBS is the hare....
> CBS doesn't want to be caught on the sidelines -- like the
> music industry once was -- if a new form of content
> distribution catches fire with the public.
Or like CBS itself was back in 1986-1995 when Larry Tisch [1] was running things. CBS had had a disastrous experience with a programming venture called "CBS Cable," and Tisch -- logically -- didn't want to repeat the experiment. But he went to the opposite extreme, refusing to invest in any non-broadcast programming for the cable industry. He even sold off CBS's only cable holding, a one-third interest in "SportsChannel." It was not until 1997 -- two years after Tisch's departure -- that CBS finally re-entered the cable programming business, with the launch of something called "Eye on People." [2] Apparently that experiment wasn't successfully either; at any rate, CBS sold "Eye on People" to Discovery Communications two years later.
Of course, CBS' current owner, Viacom, owns numerous non-broadcast programming channels: MTV, MTV2, Nickelodeon, BET, Nick at Nite, TV Land, NOGGIN, VH1, Spike TV, CMT, Comedy Central, Showtime, The Movie Channel, Flix, Sundance Channel. [3]
------------ References --------------
[1] Douglas Gomery. "TISCH, LAURENCE, U.S. Media Mogul." The Museum of Broadcast Communications.
1997, 16-23.
[3] Columbia Journalism Review. "Who Owns What: Viacom."