"The TV Wheel was a television experiment created by and starring Joel Hodgson, of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame. Cable network HBO ordered a pilot, but ultimately passed on picking up the show. The pilot episode eventually aired once on Comedy Central as a special presentation following the last new episode of MST3K to be broadcast on that network."*

The pilot, bookended by introduction segments, is right through this door: [more inside]
posted by item on Aug 11, 2010 - 41 comments

Though most were betting on the former Tonight Show host to end up with a show on FOX, Conan O'Brien has confirmed today that he will do a late night show for cable network TBS at 11pm, starting in November. There was no word on the status of the masturbating bear.
posted by kyleg on Apr 12, 2010 - 73 comments

What the cable company pays for the channels you don't watch. A chart of the subscriber fees for basic and digital cable. ESPN laps the field at over $4.00 per subscriber, MTV Hits ("MTV Classic") and Nick Too (west coast Nick) come in at $.01.
posted by pollex on Mar 8, 2010 - 100 comments

Childrens' cable television mainstay and media brand Nickelodeon is rebranding as "The Nick" with a new splat-less logo. [more inside]
posted by Servo5678 on Aug 4, 2009 - 55 comments

Mock the Vote: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert interviewed.
posted by Artw on Sep 25, 2008 - 41 comments

Enjoy over 170,000 screencaps of your favorite cable news personalities at ReporterCaps.com.
posted by dhammond on Mar 30, 2008 - 20 comments

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession. In the late 1970s to the end of the 1980s, LA's Z Channel was a pay-TV cable channel that would play loads of esoteric films. It'd been credited with starting the trend of "director's cuts", bringing passed-over directors and films to the public's attention, and in some cases, was directly responsible for Oscar Nominations -- and was basically the work of one man, Jerry Harvey. Unfortunately, Z Channel folded shortly after Jerry Harvey killed his wife and then himself. Xan Cassavetes' film tells the story of Jerry Harvey and Z Channel through interviews with filmmakers and those involved, including an archival interview with Harvey himself.
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me on Jul 20, 2005 - 6 comments

TiVo saved? After a grim 4Q04 conference call, focusing on bells and whistles for which there's little evidence of customer demand, it's now reported that TiVo is on the verge of striking a deal with Comcast to integrate TiVo software and services into Comcast's integrated tuner-DVRs. TiVo needs this deal very, very badly...
posted by MattD on Mar 15, 2005 - 29 comments

Trio close to being cancelled. They are one of the few good cable nets. They showed Pink Lady and Jeff fer goodness sakes. Link to how to complain here. As the poster sez: "Isn't the point of paying for hundreds of different channels to not have them be all the same?" Caveat: I killed my tv in March and have never been happier.
posted by alfredogarcia on Jan 3, 2005 - 39 comments

Shop At Home TV Network salesdroid hurts self. You take a guess at what it ensues.
posted by xmutex on Feb 6, 2004 - 41 comments

Whatever happened to Saturday Morning Cartoons? An astonishingly intelligent article about how Cable TV, dual-family households, regulations and more eliminated what more than a few of us remember quite fondly as the magical time when suddenly TV existed for our personal entertainment purposes. Anyone else remember occasionally dragging themselves out of bed at 6AM for what was ultimately five hours of really, really cool commercials? (Link from Fark!)
posted by effugas on May 9, 2003 - 71 comments

Anonymously rat out your thieving neighbors. Cable companies are mounting a television commercial campaign advertising cabletheft.com, where you can rat out anyone you might suspect stealing cable. Tagline of the commercial: "Sooner or later, you're going to pay."
posted by dcgartn on Mar 23, 2002 - 27 comments

We're getting some new cable channels in Canada, and one of them is PrideVision, the world's first gay, lesbian, and bisexual television network. Even ten years ago, would anyone have thought we'd someday see programmes like Closeted Hollywood, Dyke TV, Queer as Folk, and Metrosexuality on North American television? And as a category 1 service, Canadian cable companies are required to make PrideVision available as part of their digital service.
posted by tranquileye on Aug 31, 2001 - 14 comments

Leo Laporte preannounces some major changes to TechTV. His announcement is mainly about the changes to his own schedule, but he notes that they're about to go MSNBC-live-style for nine hours during the day. Will that finally give us a useful reason to watch a network that up to now has been terminally dull and useless to anyone outside of San Francisco whenever Leo himself wasn't on the air?
posted by aaron on Mar 15, 2001 - 5 comments

USA Network complies with Tylenol's request to halt production of a drug-tampering movie.
posted by gluechunk on Dec 6, 2000 - 11 comments