On Ramp: Exploring Cable Opportunities

Don't forget cable TV as a legitimate outlet for your video wares.

Though the information superhighway is being paved a little further every day, it seems the promised 500-channel cable universe may be more hope than reality. To most of America, this just means having to be satisfied with the same 60 or 70 channel choices. But to independent video producers, it means an incredible loss of opportunity. Talk of highly-targeted, audience-specific channels such as a boating channel, the how-to-sew network and the high school sports station are little more than whispers now. Undoubtedly, the technology will eventually become available, all the bugs will get ironed out and television nirvana will arrive. For the time being, however, it's business as usual.

Fortunately, that's not such bad news. Those 60 or 70 choices now available offer an unparalleled chance for videomakers to get their work viewed by a national audience. In case you stumbled on that last sentence, let me repeat--the specialty cable networks on the air today, in most every television market in America, are a viable distribution outlet for independent video producers. We're not talking CNN, MTV or Lifetime. It's the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, Food TV, the Sports Channel and others that provide hope for the independent looking f…