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3 unusual facts about Channel drift


Channel drift

Beginning in 1970, incoming network vice president Fred Silverman orchestrated the rural purge, in which these shows would be canceled in favor of shows targeting younger, suburban viewers with more disposable income.

Launching as religious network CBN Satellite Service (a cable extension of televangelist Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network) in 1977, it later incorporated family-oriented secular programs by 1984, which became the channel's dominant form of programming for nearly two decades.

Sci-Fi Channel changed its name to Syfy for both trademark reasons and to allow a stretching of the network's definition of appropriate programming, including Law & Order: Special Victims Unit reruns and WWE professional wrestling.



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