When the Niche Gets Too Snug

The History Channel received a drubbing in this space a few weeks ago, after shipping producers “visual guidelines” that urge them to “give younger experts a chance on camera” and emphasize finding interview subjects who look good on TV, even if they’re not the leading authority in the field.

Some people were understandably chagrined to think the History Channel might place its pursuit of younger demographics ahead of the little things--you know, like history.

Upon further reflection, however, it occurred to me that the History Channel is hardly unique in viewing its marketing niche, which must have sounded like such a good idea initially--”You want history? Well, we got a whole channel of it”--as too confining to fulfill around the clock without a few compromises.

Plenty of cable networks, in fact, possess terrific brand names that define them and yet, in a way, also imprison them--leading to awkward if not downright absurd deviations from what they purport to deliver.

American Movie Classics? They show movies, all right, but as The Times’ Susan King observed recently, they have a rather liberal description of “classics,” or for that matter American, unless those productions of “Gammera the Invincible” and “The War of the Gargantuas” I recall seeing some time back were dubbed into Japanese and then badly re-dubbed back into English.

In fact, the word “classic” is tossed around so freely it should explore legal options to protect its good name. Consider ESPN Classics, which fleshes out its roster of “classic” sports (really, can NASCAR ever be classic?) with sports-themed movies dubbed “Reel Classics.” File in the not-even-close bin this month’s entry, “Let It Ride,” a dreadful 1989 horserace betting comedy starring Richard Dreyfuss.

Let’s also not forget Cable News Network, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, a.k.a. America’s NewsChannel. Although each puts “news” squarely in the middle of its name, all three have adopted a prime-time strategy clearly more devoted to talk--of the cheap, windbaggy AM radio variety--than news.

Then there’s E! Entertainment Television, whose signature program these days is “The Anna Nicole Show,” which skews more toward the realm of sideshow curiosity than entertainment. As long as “Anna Nicole” represents its scheduling centerpiece, the channel can only bring validity to its “brand” by adopting a more fitting moniker--say, V! Valium Vision or P! Psychotherapy Cinema.

This isn’t to say niche programming is a bad idea, provided the niche doesn’t become a straitjacket. Lifetime is “television for women,” but that entails more than half the population, leaving plenty of room to operate, which also holds true for pioneering channels such as ESPN, MTV and Nickelodeon.

As other, ever narrower networks-come-lately sprout up to fill digital tiers, however, they face a more delicate juggling act--compelling some to break from their profile. A case in point would be Court TV, whose fortunes ebbed and flowed along with the availability of high-profile trials until the channel successfully broadened its focus to encompass “crime and justice,” a swath wide enough to accommodate reruns of “NYPD Blue” and “Profiler.”

That said, trifling with brand names risks alienating core constituencies, from the many AMC fans who have expressed dismay about that network’s directional shift, to historians who see the History Channel’s recent edict as misguided pandering.

“It’s really a debate over some hypothetical mass market versus a quality market,” noted Roger Spiller, the George C. Marshall professor of military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in Ft. Leavenworth, Kan.

“Are they defining inclusiveness as ‘mediocrity’? I don’t think they’re synonymous,” Spiller said. “Like so many people in this line of work, they underestimate the audience.”

Geoffrey C. Ward, who has deftly mixed history and television as the principal writer of several Ken Burns documentaries--including “The Civil War,” “Baseball” and “Jazz”--echoed those sentiments.

“What this shows is the absolute disrespect for the subject that happens when people try to do history on television ... because they don’t trust the material,” said Ward, who is 61. As for finding “younger experts,” he noted, “The idea is to get someone who’s 21 or 81, as long as they have something interesting to say. The point is to tell a story that holds people’s attention.”

Granted, part of the TV audience regularly has its attention held by “Anna Nicole,” so underestimating them is probably out of the question. But Ward is right about having faith that challenging material, presented properly, can galvanize those with a taste for it.

This isn’t to say that networks should be shackled to their “brand,” already an overused term in TV circles--especially at the major networks, where viewers still bond with specific programs, not a channel or even a night. Just ask NBC, which has watched one rookie after another strike out in the time slot after “Friends,” proving that what must be seen is in the eye of the remote holder.

Still, viewers do come to the dial armed with certain expectations, and as television becomes a cacophony of choice, cable networks have clearly benefited. ESPN doesn’t need to be all things to all people but thrives as a default option for men--let’s see who’s playing--in much the way kids make Nickelodeon their first stop.

Yet that only works if these destination channels don’t disappoint them. Flip to ESPN and find a knitting bee and men will be gone in the time it takes to pop open a beer can--just as children would bail if they stopped at Nickelodeon and heard, “Tonight, on ‘Murder, She Wrote’ ... “

On a more fundamental level, it also does a disservice to the language to call yourself one thing and act like another. Besides, TV spends so much time misleading viewers with over-hyped promos, at a time when there is renewed talk of corporate responsibility, a simple commitment to truth in advertising (if that phrase isn’t oxymoronic) would doubtlessly be appreciated, newsworthy and, heck, it might even be historic.

Just please, whatever you do, don’t call it classic.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at brian.lowry@latimes.com.