The Puppy Channel

The Puppy Channel

The Puppy Channel was a short-lived American cable television channel whose programming consisted entirely of video footage of puppies.

The network was created in 1997 by retired advertising executive Dan FitzSimons. FitzSimons and his daughter Molly stated in a featured segment on "This American Life" that he came up with the idea when he was watching the O.J. Simpson murder case during the daytime and kept flipping through the channels during lulls in the trial only to see nothing was on but game shows, soaps, and reruns. FitzSimons said he thought "Something else is necessary. There's a need for a parking place on television. If you don't want to watch something that is there, you could have the TV set on, and it'd be playing something that didn't bother you, and would hold the place until your favorite show or what you chose to watch." To fill this need, he conceived of a channel that would show "24 hours a day, 7 days a week, footage of puppies fooling around like puppies do, acting the natural comedians and cuties that they are, with no people, no talk, accompanied only by relaxing instrumental music."

According to Molly FitzSimons, 41% of people in focus group surveys said they would prefer watching the channel to CNBC and 37% preferred it to TBS.

At its peak in 1998, The Puppy Channel was seen on four local cable systems around the U.S., before FitzSimons decided to give up in 2001.

The one-hour pilot show that was seen on cable TV is now digitized in DVD form to demonstrate to the TV business the programming concept's interactivity and suitability as video on demand (VOD). In 2001, the dotcom bubble's bursting gave these puppies a long nap in cyberspace, until VOD technology woke them up for new opportunities. Much of the original pilot show's video is currently viewable online at thepuppychannel.com, where people also are invited to upload video of their own pups.

See also

*Puppy Bowl

References

* [http://www.thepuppychannel.com Official site]
* [http://207.70.82.73/pages/descriptions/03/233.html "Starting from Scratch"] , episode of "This American Life" which includes the story of The Puppy Channel


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Puppy Bowl — is an annual three hour television show on Animal Planet. Shown the afternoon of the Super Bowl, it attracts over 8 million viewers. [ [http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.tv/browse thread/thread/705e4ad597c7a32d Puppy Bowl IV draws over 8… …   Wikipedia

  • The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh — title card Genre Comedy Adventure Fantasy Family …   Wikipedia

  • The Care Bears (TV series) — Format Animated children s television series Created by Linda Denham Elena Kucharik Starring Billie Mae Richards Jim Henshaw Dan Hennessey Chris Wiggins …   Wikipedia

  • The Mobile Cop Jiban — Format Metal Hero Tokusatsu Created by Keita Amemiya …   Wikipedia

  • The Angry Beavers — Tile card featuring Daggett (left) and Norbert (right) Beaver Genre Comedy Format Animated se …   Wikipedia

  • The Osmonds — performing in Hamburg; 1970s (l r): Alan, Merrill, Donny, Jay and Wayne Background information Origin Utah, United States …   Wikipedia

  • The Flintstone Kids — Genre Animation Directed by Art Davis Don Lusk Carl Urbano Rudy Zamora Voices of …   Wikipedia

  • The Secret World of Benjamin Bear — is an animated television series produced from 2003 to 2005 by Amberwood Entertainment, aired in Canada on The Family Channel.The title character is a stuffed toy bear which, together with other stuffed bears, are alive and have adventures of… …   Wikipedia

  • The Raccoons — Infobox Television show name = The Raccoons caption = The Raccoons genre = Animated television series/Children s runtime = 25 mins creator = Kevin Gillis producer = Atkinson Film Arts (1985 1986) Hinton Animation Studios (1987 1992) executive… …   Wikipedia

  • The Power of Nightmares — Infobox Television bgcolour = name = The Power of Nightmares caption = Title screen of The Power of Nightmares format = Documentary series runtime = 180 min. (total) creator = director = Adam Curtis producer = Adam Curtis Executive Producer… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”