DBW's World -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 7/4/2001
Last Visited: 8/26/2001
Don Cornwell , chief executive of Granite Broadcasting , a nine-station television group.Granite is one of only two black-owned media companies that are publicly traded on Wall Street.He has operated Granite for 12 years , and he knows the big players in the TV industry.
And while he'll never say never , he comes pretty close to saying just that when it comes to the possibility of getting into cable programming.
I think that the big fear for us has always been getting access to the pipes that go into the home , he said.
If you think about the fact that Oxygen , ( the new women's cable channel ) backed by ( award-winning TV producer ) Marcy Carsey and Oprah Winfrey – that they've had difficulty getting access , well , Cornwell said.…You couldn't have people that are more well-connected and wealthier.So it's a little daunting..
Oxygen , which launched in February , has now lined up major cable carriage deals with several big operators , but those deals took a lot longer to get done than many people had assumed.And in many areas , Oxygen is being seen on the more seldom-seen digital tier.That translates into a lot less viewers than Lifetime , the Hearst/Disney network that has dominated the women's programming game for the better part of 20 years.
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It doesn't solve every problem , and it doesn't make it so that anybody can just walk through a door and get a broadcast property , Cornwell went on.But that's not the way the world works anyway..