Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 14, 1993 TAG: 9302140025
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
EXPLODING SOON ONTO CABLE ARRAY: MILITARY CHANNEL
If tracer missiles thrill you and Scuds make your heart thud, don't touch that dial. The Military Channel is planning to bombard you with visions of war, 24 hours a day."Military and aviation are hugely popular," says Douglas Keeney, the visionary who hopes to give new meaning to the term "domestic warfare."
Keeney is betting there will be an audience for a cable TV channel devoted entirely to battle, war machinery and fighting men and women. John Wayne movies will have a prominent niche, he says.
So far, Keeney said from his office in Louisville, Ky., he's raised about $1 million of the $6 million to $7 million it will take to make the Military Channel a reality. The money is being spent in film production and getting programs ready for the debut late this year.
"If you like news on television, cable TV is willing to give you a 24-hour channel," he reasoned. "If it's sports, it will supply you all the time, any time. If it's courtroom dramas you like, you get 24-hour court TV. Want cartoons? You got a cartoon channel. So we are going to have a 24-hour military channel."
Whether he succeeds depends first on what happens with the cable TV law enacted last year. It limits cable companies' ability to raise rates.
"That really threw a monkey wrench into plans to add additional channels," said Michael Lustman of Time-Warner Cable, the second-largest cable company. "It still is up in the air as to what kind of restrictions the Federal Communications Commission will put on cable TV operators' ability to raise prices."
A typical day of programming on the Military Channel might have a couple of classic war movies in the morning. There would be news in the evening and perhaps a Navy show called "Night Traps" about landing on carriers. Prime time would be devoted to World War II history, battle histories and documentaries.
"Instead of running present-day public service ads, we would run ones from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s," Keeney said. "Old recruiting ads will come on."
He's also thinking about a poetic segment on stealth aircraft: "There'll be no talk, just music. You just watch it fly for six minutes."
And he's planning to run a series on the 8th Air Force in England in the 1940s called "Hurry Home, Honey."
Keeney also intends to cover breaking military news. For an incident like the Jan. 17 shootdown of an Iraqi plane by a U.S. F-16, he says, the Military Channel would go live to the breaking news and follow the story all day.
Advertisers, he hopes, will be drawn to what he expects to be a predominantly male audience.
Bridgit Blumberg, spokeswoman for the National Cable Television Association, said the Military Channel is one of a wave of such ventures trying to take advantage of new technology that will allow cable systems to carry 500 channels.
Currently, channel capacity is full.
But Keeney is planning for his channel's debut and he sees nothing but victory in the air. Already cable operators are calling him, he says, to make sure they're put on his list.