THOSE OF YOU who've already been living in the now two-thirds or so of King County that has AT&T Digital Cable already know about what I'm discussing today.
For most of the '90s, Summit Cable (the feisty independent serving the few leftover Seattle neighborhoods other cable companies didn't bother with) had a far better channel lineup than either Viacom or the cable operation successively run by TelePrompTer, Group W, and TCI. When Viacom Cable upgraded its local system (just prior to being bought up by TCI, leaving that company with two different sets of channels in different parts of Seattle), Summit remained either a step ahead of or a step behind in selection.
But TCI got bought out by AT&T, which is aggressively pursuing digital upgrades as a means toward eventually offering all sorts of services (including, down the line, a return of its old "Ma Bell" local phone service).
Summit, meanwhile, was bought out by Millennium Digital Media, a multi-regional independent with seemingly few immediate priorities beyond cash-milking its properties.
Thus, while Millennium's digital-upgrade package includes only lots of pay-per-view movies, AT&T offers channels with real, short-form TV programming. (What the TV set was built for.)
In all, 35 channels are on the digital service, combined with the 73 channels on the system's "expanded basic" package.
TCI's ex-boss John Malone once claimed his company would eventually deliver as many as 500 channels to any home that wanted them. Besides the 108 channels mentioned here already, AT&T Digital has 73 premium and pay-per-view channels, plus 37 music audio channels.
No, that's still not "enough," programming-choice-wise.
For one thing, the lineup's weighted with multiple versions of channels AT&T partly owns (Discovery, TLC, BET, Fox Sports Net, QVC, Encore/Starz), as well as channels AT&T and/or its predecessors at TCI contracted to put on all its cable systems regardless of local interest (Oxygen, Fox News Channel, etc.).
It's still missing several channels popular among satellite-dish owners and on cable systems in other locales (WGN, the Travel Channel, the Food Network, ABC SoapNet, Playboy TV, the computer-news channel ZDTV, the MTV alternative MuchMusic, the British/Canadian entertainment channel Trio, etc.).
And all those pay-per-view channels essentially show the same few movies, with scattered starting times. The concept of a video store inside your cable box is still too similar to the video racks some 7-Eleven stores used to have--just the same few mainstream Hollywood snoozers "everybody" but you supposedly loved.
And the official "Alternative" channel in the system's audio section leaves even more to be desired. It plays almost nothing but those annoying "aggro" snothead bands and Pearl Jam impersonators.
On the plus side, there's tons of fun stuff on AT&T Digital I just couldn't get on Millennium:
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Game Show Network (all the heroes of my youth--Allen Ludden, Bill Cullen, Gene Rayburn).
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ESPN Classic (old games from when basketball was still a team sport).
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BET On Jazz (classic Nat "King" Cole episodes; odd footage of post-bebop pros playing in Japan).
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The Sundance Channel (cool foreign and indie movies uncut).
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Fox Movie Channel (I've a soft spot for creaky old '40s crime films and '50s CinemaScope travelogue dramas).
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BBC America (world news as if the non-U.S. world mattered; "Britcom" comedies not safely quaint enough for PBS; music and variety shows made by folks who know how to shoot such things dramatically).
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Ovation (remember when A&E was "The Arts and Entertainment Network"? When Bravo was "The Film and Arts Channel"? This is the newest self-proclaimed fine-arts cable channel, and for now it's keeping to its promises).
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TV Land (somebody besides me actually remembers Finder of Lost Loves!).
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Encore True Stories (by day, fun/cheesy "Inspired By Actual Events" TV movies from the '80s and early '90s; by night, uncut theatrical melodramas like Scandal and The Lover).
All in all, a big step forward for TV lovers such as myself. But there's still room for improvement, for even more diversity.
But I'm already in love with the way channels on digital cable appear in small image blocks, taking two seconds or more to fill the screen. Even though, one day soon, music-video and commercials directors are surely going to catch onto the schtick and imitate it to death.
TOMORROW: Is business the root of all evil?
ELSEWHERE:
- That marriage of Hanna-Barbera formula cartoonery and '60s hot-rod iconography: Wacky Races!...
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