Science-Fiction Channel Pitched for Cable : Television: The service will feature sci-fi, fantasy and horror programming. Backers seek the financing and cable systems that will carry the channel.

When cable television networks were being formed about a decade ago, among the first were all-movie, all-sports and all-news services. In the years that followed, seemingly every genre has gotten its own 24-hour channel, ranging from all-music video to all-home shopping.

A Florida entrepreneur believes there is room on America’s cable boxes for another “all” service. A year from now, Mitchell Rubenstein plans to launch the Sci-Fi Channel, which will be devoted to science fiction, fantasy and horror programming.

Rubenstein, the network’s president, says the network will air a mix of original and repeat shows. The original programming will include game and talk shows, documentaries and cartoons. The network also plans series on computer software, NASA, archeology, dinosaurs, comic books and science. Much of the programming will originate from its studios in Orlando, Fla.

The network’s most ambitious project is “Isaac Asimov’s Universe,” an anthology series created by the legendary science-fiction author. Rubenstein hopes the series will be a joint venture between his network and a major studio, with the studio retaining foreign rights.

Asimov is on the channel’s board of advisers, as is “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry and author Martin H. Greenberg.

The Sci-Fi Channel, however, will have many hurdles to clear before getting off the ground.

“Each year we hear from about 10 groups who want to start new cable networks,” said Larry Gerbrandt, vice president and senior analyst of the Carmel-based media research and investment firm of Paul Kagan Associates Inc. “Usually four to six show up at the industry’s trade shows and an average of one a year gets on. It will be an uphill battle for the Sci-Fi Channel.”

The first need is money. Start-up costs are being shouldered by Rubenstein, who had owned and operated cable systems in the Midwest and Southeast before selling them in January. Arrangements for additional financing are being handled by Shearson Lehman Hutton.

“We perceive there to be a very broad universe of potential interested entities that would like to have a piece of the channel,” said Frank Yeary, an associate with Shearson Lehman Hutton’s media communication group.

Another hurdle will be getting enough cable systems to carry the channel. That task has become more difficult as the available channel capacity has diminished.

“To launch a network these days, you need at least 5 or 6 million homes at launch and (must be able to) see your way to 25 million by three years,” Gerbrandt said. “You don’t even hit ‘break even’ until 20 million to 25 million.”

Rubenstein hopes the network will be in 7 million homes at its launch, and projects an annual 30% to 40% growth.

“I anticipate that it will take four to five years to bring it to profitability because we’re plowing so much into programming,” Rubenstein said. “It would only hurt ourselves if we put less money into programming.”

The Sci-Fi Channel was born out of a brainstorming session and buttressed by a marketing survey.

“It just hit me that it was a great concept,” Rubenstein said. “We examined analogies to other areas where science fiction was commercially successful to see where we’d be successful. Science fiction publishing is a huge and respected arm of publishing. Comic books are very successful and 20% of video rentals are devoted to science fiction, fantasy and horror. The more we explored, the more we became comfortable that science fiction was a legitimate business and very popular in the U.S.”

In January, Rubenstein commissioned a Gallup Poll of approximately 1,000 cable subscribers. The channel said the survey revealed it would be at least as popular as Nickelodeon (a children’s network), and probably more popular than MTV for viewers from age 12 to 49.

Although Rubenstein talks with optimism over the many areas where science fiction has proven popular, an area it has not fared well in is television.

Television’s most memorable science-fiction shows, “The Twilight Zone” and “Star Trek,” never cracked Nielsen’s Top 25 over the course of a season.

Recent science-fiction programs have fared even worse. A CBS revival of “The Twilight Zone” was canceled midway through its second season in 1987. NBC, over the past eight seasons, has tried nine science-fiction or fantasy series, and eight were canceled in two seasons or less. The ninth, “Quantum Leap”--the lone science-fiction series currently on the three major networks--is ranked 67th among 85 prime-time shows.

Rubenstein’s first response to science fiction’s problems on network television is to give a broader definition to the genre. Among the series he plans to include are former network hits “Bewitched” and “My Favorite Martian.”

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