The Big Idea


September 1, 2001


BOB GARFIELD: We're back with On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Well the summer's winding down and the bean counters in TV land are counting up the winners and losers. The winner, according to Variety, is cable which beat the six broadcast networks decisively in the ratings. And one of the biggest winners in basic cable, the service that snagged the number one spot in primetime, is not MTV, not CNN, not Fox News and not Nickelodeon. It's Lifetime, "Television for Women." We're joined now by Max robins, columnist for TV Guide. So Max, what happened in the last two years to catapult Lifetime to the number one spot?

MAX ROBINS: You really can look at Lifetime's really startling growth in a mature business to Carol Black [sp?] coming aboard as the president! And what she really did was solidify the Lifetime brand and expand on it; and launched a number of new series, most of which have been successful. They upped their production of original movies, and they got much more aggressive in marketing the brand. They also, in a real dollars and sense term said we're going to spend some more money! In the last couple of years their budget for original programming from what I understand has gone from a hundred million to two hundred million. It's paid off!

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Who is the audience for Lifetime?

MAX ROBINS:Well it's primarily women, say probably 60, 65 percent women. But there are a lot of men who watch as well, and I think it has a real middle America appeal which isn't to say it's not sophisticated. It's a place that says here - you can come here to be entertained and informed. But it's not work to come here.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: There was another effort to launch a kind of women's service. That was Oxygen.

MAX ROBINS:That's started by Gerry Layborn [sp?] who founded Nickelodeon and is kind of a legendary figure in television programming, and she in launching this almost was kind of looking down her nose at Lifetime, almost like this was, you know, the K-Mart women's network, and, and I really don't think that's fair. I think there was a kind of an intellectual snobbery there. And I think that she was trying to program a network to women who don't watch a lot of television!

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So it seems that programming television for women who don't watch television isn't likely to be a winning strategy.

MAX ROBINS:No! Look, you have to go out there and say okay, who's the audience that's interested, and how are they -- are they under-served? And what do they like? Can I give them more of it? And I think that that's what Lifetime did.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:What do you say to those women, then, who dismiss Lifetime as the network of victims and domestic workers and people in extremity and all the sturm und drang that never seems to end?

MAX ROBINS: Well, I think that's too facile an analysis. I mean you look at a show like Any Day Now that traces the relationship between a white woman and an African-American woman and traces their friendship that goes back to girlhood in the South -- it's a very intelligent, well-written, well-acted show, and if you're going to just dismiss this whole network out of hand like that, you might be cheating yourself out of a valuable television viewing experience.

A funny story that one of the creators of that show told me -- she said she pitched that several years ago to one of the broadcast networks. I believe it was CBS. And they said - you know, she sat with the executives; they said it's a terrific idea. We just want you to make one little change. Make the two leads men instead of women. [LAUGHTER] And I think that pretty much sums it up, here! I mean what's going on in what Lifetime's appeal is.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you watch Lifetime?

MAX ROBINS: I've been known to watch it. I like The District. I like a good cop show.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS] And it's okay if the crusty old police captain is a woman?

MAX ROBINS: [LAUGHS] Let's put it this way -- she's a lot less crusty than looking at Dennis Franz on NYPD Blue. [LAUGHS]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: J. Max Robins, thank you very much.

MAX ROBINS: You're welcome Brooke, always a pleasure.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Max Robins writes The Robins Report for TV Guide.