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== MTV Networks / Viacom Examples ==
* If a [[Trope Codifier]] could be named for this, that dubious honor would most likely belong to [[MTV]], which began in 1981 as an all-[[Music Video]] station. Now it might play a video at 3:00 AM if you're lucky -- the rest of the time is devoted to reality shows that have nothing to do with music (or often, for that matter, reality). Or programs from other Viacom-owned networks, such as ''[[American Gladiators]]'' and even ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]''.
:The decay arguably began in the early 1990s with ''[[The Real World]]'' and ''[[Beavis and Butthead]]'' (the latter of which featured music videos, albeit with ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]''-style commentary by the title characters), two of the most popular programs in the network's history. The MTV executives saw this, and started commissioning more non-music shows, until music had been pushed into late night/early morning and the after-school ''Total Request Live'' (TRL) block. At one point, they even ran commercials with the tagline "MTV: [[Captain Obvious|We Don't Play Music]]." Since the cancellation of TRL in 2008, it's still trying to play lip service to its roots with the "FNMTV" and "AMTV" blocks of videos. In 2010, MTV's [https://web.archive.org/web/20111006014919/http://omis.me/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/MTV-logo-stripped.jpg logo was changed] to omit the words "Music Television" completely.
** In some European countries, MTV still primarily shows music videos. American reality TV isn't nearly as popular outside America. That also used to be true for Latin American MTV, but now it devotes about 70% of its schedule to non-music shows.
** In the [[Britain|United Kingdom]], MTV UK was re-branded as MTV One (now just plain MTV) and shows nothing but reality shows, animation, and live-action scripted shows such as ''[[Pretty Little Liars]]'' and ''[[Blue Mountain State]]''. <ref>Bizarrely, the new version of ''[[Teen Wolf (TV series)|Teen Wolf]]'', which was ''actually produced by MTV'', is screened on another channel, Sky Living, instead of MTV UK.</ref> MTV UK's genre channels (MTV Base plays Urban, MTV Rocks plays indie rock and alternative, to give two examples) have their own programming related to the music they play, such as interviews. These have been cut back in favour of playing more music videos, leading to perhaps the first known instance of MTV being criticised for playing ''too many'' music videos. In 2011, MTV UK more or less stopped pretending to be a music channel, moving alongside the entertainment channels on Sky's EPG and launching a new channel called [[Department of Redundancy Department|MTV Music]] to fill in the missing gap.
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* MTV's subscription channels have followed a similar pattern, with the metal-centric MTVX being replaced by the rap-centric MTV Jams. MTV Hits, another channel which is still pretty good about music videos, is still going...for now, although it adopted a "playlistism" gimmick in 2006-07. Ditto VH-1 Soul, CMT Pure, and the aforementioned MTV Jams.
* MTV's sister channel, [[VH-1]], was launched to stave off competition from Ted Turner's Cable Music Channel (it worked) and originally targeted the demographic that had grown out of MTV with videos by "adult contemporary" artists (Phil Collins, et al.). From there it added shows themed around music from the 1960s and '70s, plus some stand-up comedy programs to vary the lineup, and by the end of [[The Nineties]] it found a niche in music-related films (''[[Footloose]]'', ''[[The Wall]]'', etc.) and documentary and trivia shows like ''Behind the Music'' and ''Pop-Up Video'', essentially becoming "MTV Classic".
:Starting at the [[Turn of the Millennium]], however, it turned into a channel [[I Love the Exties|celebrating pop culture in general]] by getting D-list celebrities to comment on it. From there it moved to D-list celebrity reality shows, and currently{{when}} shows music videos only for a few hours on weekday mornings. As if anticipating its decay, VH-1 launched VH-1 Classic, a station devoted purely to music and music videos, particularly from the 1970s and 1980s, and the occasional music movie. It briefly decayed when it started airing some of the old VH-1 D-list celebrity shows in the off-hours, but reversed it by airing music festivals like Download and creating music-oriented talk shows like ''That Metal Show'', which received positive reviews. Tellingly, they were the ''only'' MTV channel to acknowledge the original's 30th anniversary in 2011, via a whole weekend of classic segments and promos!
* The Nashville Network, a country music and culture-oriented channel, morphed into the genreless TNN (The ''National'' Network) and ultimately [[Spike TV]]. (In a case of decay following decay however, [[Spike TV]]: "Television for Guys" all but morphed into the ''[[CSI]]'' repeat network.) This is somewhat understandable — Viacom owned both TNN and CMT, forcing one of the networks to be retooled to avoid redundancy. However, for three years before Viacom bought [[CBS]], the latter company owned both TNN and CMT, and didn't seem concerned about redundancy. In fact...
* [[CMT]], or Country Music Television, drifted towards programming with little if any connection to country music. In something of a double decay, CMT in 2007 began drifting away from ''that'', showing reruns of shows such as ''[[Hogan Knows Best]]'' and ''[[Nanny 911]]'' along with movies like ''[[The Negotiator]]''. Even [[Time Warner Cable]] noticed, suing Viacom for not airing a network consisting of mainly country programming. Viacom responded with corporate buzzspeak about how country fans prefer "a greater variety of programming" with "the same types of values and stories embodied by country music". They've since slid back though -- in addition to still showing more videos than any other basic-cable music channel, they found something of a niche with [[Deep South]]-flavored programming -- ''[[The Dukes of Hazzard]]'' reruns, a country-specific reboot of ''[[The Singing Bee]]'', etc. Meanwhile, sister channel CMT Pure Country (originally VH-1 Country) is almost entirely video-focused, even showing videos from the '80's and '90's.
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== Disney Examples ==
* Christian Broadcasting Network, originally launched by Pat Robertson as the cable TV arm of his ministry, gradually began to add more and more [[Sitcom]] reruns, general entertainment, and other non-religious programming to its lineup throughout [[The Eighties]] in a bid to make it onto basic cable lineups outside of [[Deep South|the Bible Belt]]. As the ratio of religious to non-religious programming shifted, it became CBN, then CBN Family, then the Family Channel, before being bought out by [[FOX]]. Fox Family floundered and was sold to [[Disney]], which wanted to rename the channel to "XYZ" to remarket it to a different audience by repurposing ABC shows. But the contracts with the cable companies required that the word "Family" stay in the channel name, making this impossible.<ref>The only way they managed to get over the requirement was when they launched the channel in Canada under the name ABC ''Spark''.</ref>
:Its name may not have changed, but as evidenced by shows like ''[[Greek]]'', ''[[Make It or Break It]]'', ''[[Kyle XY]]'', and ''[[The Secret Life of the American Teenager]]'', the station now known as [[ABC Family]] isn't really that family-oriented anymore. Aside from its weekend movie blocks, it's now a basic cable version of [[The WB|the former WB network]].<ref>When you actually air a movie called ''Satan's School for Girls'' on a channel with the word "family" in it, you are very much "a different kind of family"!</ref> ''The 700 Club'' (required in the original contract with Pat Robertson) and a Sunday morning/late night [[Infomercial]] block filled with megachurch pastors are the only things left hinting at ABC Family's roots as a religious channel, and even then they're buried at 11:00 PM with a disclaimer in front warning people, containing an unequivocal "does not reflect the views of ABC Family" due to [[wikipedia:Pat Robertson#Controversies and criticisms|Robertson's laundry list of controversial statements and positions]].<ref>To name just one example, he agreed with Jerry Falwell's statement that the USA's immorality invited the events of 9/11 '''[[Too Soon|the week of]]'''.</ref>
** The ultimate [[Irony]] is that Pat Robertson is one of the [[Moral Guardians]] who objects to the ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' series, yet ABC Family owns the US broadcasting rights to the ''[[Harry Potter (film)|Harry Potter]]'' films and airs ''Potter'' marathons constantly.
* [[Disney Channel]] originally had a lineup of vintage Disney movies, cartoons, and TV shows, combined with original documentaries about the company's various projects, a lot of interesting imported shows (especially from Canada), and such programming for adults as ''[[A Prairie Home Companion]]''. But as it lost ground to [[Nickelodeon]] in [[The Nineties]], it started to focus more and more on kids. It shoved most of the vintage programs aside, interspersing about three hours of cartoons at 1:00 AM with hours and hours of tween-centered programs and...BoyBand concerts...on Disney Channel? <ref>(The worst part was that, originally, the Disney Channel was a ''premium'' cable service like [[HBO]] or Cinemax, and was ''nothing'' like Nickelodeon, which was basic-cable from its conception. With Nickelodeon entering its golden age just as Disney was hitting a low point in programming quality, the only way to stop mass cancellation of subscriptions was to move it to basic-cable. '''Nickelodeon actually forced The Walt Disney Company to change Disney Channel's business model.''')</ref> It abandoned ''Vault Disney'', ''The Ink and Paint Club'', and most other broadcasts of classic Disney cartoons and shows in order to turn into a preppy, suburban tween-oriented network whose M.O. seems to be "promote every last one of our child stars as the next great actor/singer/songwriter/dancer/
:Worse, Disney Channel's tween pop focus, which began with the then-popular ''[[Hannah Montana]]'' and ''[[High School Musical]]'' franchises, seemed to have overrun The Walt Disney Company as a whole throughout the mid-to-late 2000s, and the future of the company's reputation was in doubt, despite their acquisition of [[Pixar]] in 2006. Luckily, there was the release of ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]'' in 2009, and now (almost) everything in the company is going back to its "magical" roots. Unfortunately, some may say it's too late to save the Disney Channel now that they have [[Disney XD|two channels]] that are (despite using the Disney name) only catering to tween girls and/or boys. As of 2012, [[Disney Junior]] is the only Disney-owned television network that actually [[Character Focus|lives up to its name]].
** [[Toon Disney]] started out as the [[Alternate Company Equivalent]] to Cartoon Network, airing animated shows from the Disney archive (and some that they had acquired, mostly from [[DiC Entertainment]]). Then, they started airing a growing number of non-Disney cartoons (including some from their arch-rival, [[Warner Bros]]), and the Jetix block, which featured shows like ''[[Power Rangers]]'', ''[[Digimon]]'', ''[[The Tick (animation)]]'', and ''[[Jackie Chan Adventures]]'', started eating up a growing chunk of the channel's airtime. Live-action shows and movies started appearing on the network, mirroring Cartoon Network's decay. Finally, in 2009, Toon Disney was renamed [[Disney XD]] (which means "[[Totally Radical|eXtreme Digital]]") and turned into a network aimed at young boys -- the [[Spear Counterpart]] to the increasingly female-focused Disney Channel. In other words, it finally ''became'' Jetix in all but name — in the process, dropping a significant portion of its remaining animated content to cram in episodes of ''[[The Suite Life of Zack and Cody]]'', ''[[Even Stevens]]'', and ''[[Zeke and Luther]]''.
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*** FOX would've avoided all this if they hadn't sold their successful "Fox Kids" lineup (which aired ''[[Power Rangers]]'', ''[[Spider-Man: The Animated Series]]'', ''Digimon'', and others) to Disney/ABC via the Fox Family network. They then retooled their Saturday-morning lineup into the "Fox Box", which consisted almost entirely of 4Kids [[Macekre|Macekres]]. Naturally, they lampshaded this by changing the lineup's name to "4Kids TV"...then, of course, replacing Saturday-morning kids' shows with infomercials.
*** In some other countries, Jetix is its own channel. For whatever reason, Disney decided that it would be better to append it as a programming block onto a network it has nothing to do with, and then let it swallow the network whole.
*** Funny thing — in Latin America, "Jetix" is what Fox Kids (down here its own channel) mutated into. After Disney bought Fox Kids when Saban went down the toilet, they renamed it Jetix, dumped all of their programming, and started from scratch. However, they still showed ''[[The Fairly
*** In Eastern Europe, Fox Kids became Jetix, dumping most of the Fox Original cartoons, but retaining Disney originals and anime adaptations, like ''[[Shaman King]]'', eventually airing a few original shows, such as ''[[Galactik Football]]'' and ''[[Oban Star Racers]]''. By late 2009, it mutated again into a straight-up Disney Channel, dumping the old Jetix shows and replacing them with regular Disney Channel broadcast.
*** Australia had the Jetix programming block on the Seven Network for a short time, vanishing just as quietly as it emerged.
** The Southeast Asian feed is a bit worse... The channel was free of any Malaysian-made shows until the mid-2000's... but it got worse when the feed was overtaken by Malaysians and Singaporeans and at that point, the Southeast Asian feed [[It's All About Me|doesn't care about the rest of the region]] as the channel, aside from the usual Disney fare and imports, aired ''Malaysian animation''. Even the show "Waktu Rehat" (Which by the way was made by Disney originally for the Malaysian feed) doesn't air dubbed but "subbed" in English (WTH?). And not to mention some Disney sitcoms have missing scenes that got censored for no reason (maybe this has something to do with the feed using the Disney Channel UK edits of the shows). At this point, the feed is beyond hopes of being like the old feed.
* ESPNEWS was created specifically so you could get scores and highlights in a half-hour (or much less if you just looked at the much more detailed ticker) without any ''[[Sports Center]]'' gimmickry and annoying segments like "Play of the Day", ''([[Product Placement|Sliver-Canned National Light Beer Manufactured in the Rocky Mountain Region of Colorado]]) Cold Hard Facts'' which pretty much existed to give short shrift to lower-tier teams who didn't have any highlights in their games, at least according to those in Bristol, Connecticut. Now that the ticker was replaced with the glacial regular flavor ESPN "bottom line" ticker and the regular ''[[Sports Center]]'' gimmicks have moved over to ESPNEWS, not to mention that ''[[Sports Center]]'' is now being used as the network's primetime branding, it's pretty much "[[Sports Center]] 24/7'' but with the network's F-team anchors.
** A similar channel in Canada, The Score (originally Sport Scope), was created with the same intent as ESPNEWS, subsequently began carring regular coverage of sporting events and is currently{{when}} the Canadian home of ''[[WWE Raw]]'' and ''[[WWE Smackdown]]'', except in Quebec, where it is carried on the Global affiliate (CKMI) and the Montreal independent TV station CJNT "Metro 14", respectively.
* You have to give it to Disney — they're at least honest about knowing when an entire '''genre''' is decaying, and have announced that because of both the fading influence of [[Soap Opera|Soap Operas]] and the fact you can now click over to a network website or flip on your cable on demand service to catch up on a soap anytime rather than waiting to record it Sunday morning at 4:00 AM, [[SOAP Net]] was replaced with Disney Junior, the new name for Disney's preschool shows (now Playhouse Disney) in March 2012. Better that they announce the decay now and get everyone prepared than just letting it wither on the vine.
:Unfortunately however, it led to the shocking cancellation of both ''[[All My Children]]'' and ''[[One Life to Live]]'' under the Brian Frons excuse that without [[SOAP Net]] airings, the shows would be too expensive to produce without a cable channel component, a theory which quickly held no water with the soap community and just sounded like a way of saying 'airing talk shows is cheaper than running a year-long soap'.
:Admittedly, though, the network has always been a tenuous project, as anything except ''[[Being Erica]]'' that isn't soap or ''[[Gilmore Girls]]''-marathon related has never done well at all for the channel, since it's usually treated as the Island of Misfit Reality Programs that both ABC and ABC Family rejected and only picked up to make existing producers happy or stop a format that might do well in another iteration from escaping to another network. Also, it's been proven over time that there's only a limited amount of interest in old soap episodes from canceled programs — nobody's willing to catch up on ''Ryan's Hope'' episodes from April 1975, except for unexpected [[Period Piece]] curiosity.
:Despite the discontinuation announcement and Disney Junior launching in March however, [[SOAP Net]] continues to run now on many cable systems, with only a few national systems currently{{when}} carrying Disney Junior because of some factors, including cost for the channel, forced HD carriage, and systems like Dish and [[Direc TV]] objecting to carrying a channel which won't have much of an audience past 10pm (Unlike Nick Jr., Disney Junior has few programs with [[Periphery Demographic]] appeal, and there's no way Disney takes the [[Adult Swim]] direction with one of their networks for late night). [[SOAP Net]] is currently{{when}} programmed by ABC Family and retains much of its programming, along with ABC Family content like ''[[Make It or Break It]]'' and and the first ever run in syndication of ''[[Veronica Mars]]'' (for awhile it was carrying [[I Shall Taunt You|viewership taunting]] weekend marathons of ''The Chew'' early in the winter until Brian Frons finally got his desk cleaned out). Ever so slightly, [[SOAP Net]] is currently{{when}} in a vindication stage until the last cable system finally picks up Disney Junior.
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* [[E!|E! Entertainment Television]] originally showed movie previews, soap opera and talk show recap programs, and many making-of documentaries and specials that covered everything from theater to animation, serving as a sort of MTV for movie and TV buffs. It eventually became all about celebrity news (i.e. gossip) and True Hollywood Stories. Then it started airing all sorts of non-celebrity-related reality programs. With shows like ''The Girls Next Door'', ''Keeping Up With the Kardashians'' (and its many [[Spin-Off|spinoffs]]) and two shows by bawdy comic Chelsea Handler<ref>The [[Talk Show]] ''Chelsea Lately'', and the [[Mockumentary]] series ''[[After Lately]]''.</ref>, it comes as no surprise that in some commercials (and on ''[[The Soup]]'') E! openly acknowledges itself as a [[Guilty Pleasures|guilty pleasure]] channel.
* E!'s sister network, Style, launched as a network which stuck on two popular things in E!'s late-1990s scheduling — their fashion and design coverage — and when it launched it showed mostly runway shows and interior design programs designed to show off the current "styles" of a time period. This decayed into more generic reality programming.
* G4, a struggling video game network, bought out [[Tech TV]], a popular computer enthusiast network with good ratings, merged them into one channel, and basically turned into a geekier version of Spike TV. G4's lineup picked up reality shows like ''[[Totally Outrageous Behavior]]'' and ''[[
** G4's Canadian counterpart, G4 Canada, went under a similar network decay as G4, to the point that the CRTC pressured that G4 Canada was competing against sister channel OLN and deviating too heavily from its purpose, which was to air technology-related programming. They also [http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2011/2011-447.htm stated] that the channel's "programming is not in compliance with its nature of service definition" and that it detail measures "to ensure that the service is in compliance with its nature of service."
* ''The [[NBC]] Sports Network'', formally ''Versus'' and originally the ''Outdoor Life Network'' (licensed from a magazine of the same name), originally focused on outdoorsy stuff like hunting and fishing. Then their annual coverage of the Tour de France became popular, due to Lance Armstrong's utter dominance of the event with seven yellow jackets in a row. They then acquired the rights to the NHL, a sport which is ''not'' played outdoors. Around the same time, they started to focus on extreme sports and college sports (although stuck with only covering lower-tier games from conferences in the western half of the country despite being based out of Philadelphia {because the [[ESPN|Worldwide Leader]] got almost everything else}, and out of New England prior to that), resulting in a name change to Versus. In 2012, following a merger with NBC and Comcast, Versus was rebranded as the NBC Sports Network to become a 24 hour cable extension of NBC Sports, and perhaps to directly compete with [[ESPN]]. Low-brow programming such as [[Groin Attack]] clip shows and ''[[The Soup|Sports Soup]]'' was abandoned the moment NBC took over. The network still shows outdoor programing, but it’s for the most part been relegated to the morning hours.
:The rebranding does have [[Tropes Are Not Bad|positive aspects]]. Once neglected and obscure sports like the [[NHL]] and the [[UFC]], have received much better exposure and viewership since they aired on the network, with the latter being able to get a lucrative deal with [[FOX]] as a result. [[Soccer]] fans are hoping NBC can do the same thing with their sport with the network receiving the rights to [[Major League Soccer|MLS]] games. In addition, NBC plans to use the network for their [[Olympic Games|Olympic]] coverage to present more live events. Considering NBC's previous tendencies to broadcast events [[Live but Delayed]], [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|fans had approval for the decision]]. It may even be a case of NBC's sports coverage [[Growing the Beard]] as a whole. Back when the main network was the only place NBC put its sports broadcasts, they were infamous for giving little to no promotion for sports that weren't the Olympics or the NFL - in other words, they wouldn't promote the sports that really needed it - and overloading those broadcasts with too many commercial breaks (Don't talk to a NASCAR fan abut when NBC carried races). As the increased exposure detailed above indicates, they appear to finally be learning how to get people hyped for lesser known events via this newly re-branded station.
* Oxygen was once the anti-Lifetime, airing shows revolving around making women better, ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'' and ''[[Roseanne]]'' reruns, and programming about yoga and improving yourself, along with women's sports. By the time NBC bought the channel in 2007 the original partners had long left, and the new management decided programming which exploited women such as the ''Bad Girls Club'', ''Snapped'' and shows revolving around how Tori Spelling's love life would do better. [[Your Mileage May Vary]] on how much of a role NBC played in it; some argue that the decay began as early as 2004, which, for around a year, devoted late nights to the next rung below softcore porn and a QVC-like block devoted to ''sex toys''. ([["Not Making This Up" Disclaimer|We wish we were making this up.]])
* [[Syfy]] started out as a network devoted to [[Science Fiction]] shows and movies
:The network slipped fully into Total Abandonment territory between 2010 and 2012 when it canceled ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', ''[[Caprica]]'', ''[[Stargate Universe]]'', and ''[[Eureka]]'' in rapid succession. The network is now known as haven for pro-wrestling and [[So Bad It's Good]] creature features, though they did announce that [http://io9.com/5905013/how-syfy-will-bring-science-fiction-back-to-television they might be interested in bringing science fiction television shows back to the science fiction television network]. Possibly.
** In Canada, Sci-Fi's counterpart (called Space) manages to mostly avoid this, though they have somewhat broadened their scope to show fantasy and horror shows/movies, such as ''[[Supernatural]]'' and ''[[Relic Hunter]]''. Still, the various ''[[Stargate Verse]]'' shows and ''[[Star Trek]]'' series constitute about 70% of what Space airs.
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* [[Animax]] (supposed to be a 24-hour [[Anime]] channel), in its Latin American side, both Brazilian and Spanish-speaking versions, became this:
** The first slip and the most [[Egregious]] example — its cycle of movies appropriately named "Reciclo", since it recycled all the action flicks already worn by repetition in other channels of the Sony Group, like AXN. The only remotely anime-related movie shown there was ''[[Tokyo Godfathers]]''... and they had repeated ''[[Hellboy (film)|Hellboy]]'' and ''[[The Fifth Element]]'' each six weeks or so since its inception. Then they added series such as ''[[Lost]]'', ''[[Blood Ties]]'', and ''[[The Middleman]]'' (with the Brazilian side also having infomercials at odd hours), canned a slew of top-rated series, such as ''[[Death Note]]'' and ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', and inserted a concert block for Latin American performers. Then in May 2010, the channel announced that it would shift its focus to an overall youth programming, thus warranting its place in Total Abandonment. After that they were still broadcasting 12 hours of anime (13 during weekends). Five months later, anime was only 5 hours, starting at 2 AM. And just five months later (March 2011) they announced a name change that occured in May - the channel becamen then known as "Sony Spin". [[In Name Only|Animax]] RIP 2005-11.
** Before Animax LA was owned by Sony, it had other name, Locomotion. Originally was a children oriented channel, but became a youth oriented channel a year later to avoid competition with Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. Shortly after it became an adult oriented animation channel (it showed things like ''[[Aeon Flux]]'', ''[[The Maxx]]'', ''[[The Head]]'', the ''[[Prince Valiant]]'' movies and ''[[Wallace and Gromit]]'' shorts, along with experimental animation, among others shows), and eventually it evolved into an anime channel (showing more than 10 anime series a day), so it started calling itself "the anime channel". The problem is that after a while it stopped showing animes at all, crowded with other programs (of quality) like ''[[Duckman]]'', ''[[South Park]]'' or ''[[The Critic]]''. Eventually, it created an advertisement that said ''"The good anime, takes time. Anime-station"''. Did this mean they were going to add more anime in the future? Watchers were really confused by this. It turned out they had sold their rights to Sony to become a full Anime channel. Eventually this lead to the channel being rebranded to Animax, and later to Sony Spin.
** As Sony Spin, the channel still aired anime at early morning hours, even airing new series like ''[[Nodame Cantabile]]'', ''[[
* Animax Spain followed the same disastrous way as Latin American's. Japanese animation found itself in the minority (they only broadcasted either very old series like ''[[Kochikame]]'' or ''[[
* Animax South Africa followed the same disastrous was as Latin America's and Spain's. Japanese animation became almost in the minority and were few and far between, as reality shows took over the schedule, and was soon closed down to make way for a new channel, Sony Max, which basically airs the same reality shows that aired on Animax South Africa.
* In the Southeast Asia feeds, blocks of [[Korean Drama]]s were added. Thankfully, no further slipping has happened, but given the above precedents...
* In general the Animax brand has been very luckless outside of Japan and Eastern Asia. With the exception of Germany's feed, who as of 2016 is still on air, almost every attempt to establish the brand ended with the channel irremediably decaying, or turning into a programming block
== Other "Total Abandonment" examples: ==
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* Over the years, the networks have gradually dumped their traditional [[Saturday Morning Cartoon|Saturday morning blocks]] for more dramas, reality shows, soaps, and news. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, all of the broadcast networks except [[UPN]] had the entire 6:00 AM to Noon block of Saturdays set aside just for animated programs and other programs appealing to people of all ages, with FOX and the WB even going so far as to add in an extra two to three hours every weekday morning ''and'' afternoon, as well. But in the late 1990s, increased cable competition ([[Nickelodeon]], [[Cartoon Network]], etc.) and FCC mandates requiring a minimum three hours of educational kids' programming on broadcast networks each week proved crippling -- since most kids bar preschoolers don't/won't watch strictly educational shows, there was little incentive for producers to make them. Entertainment shows like ''[[The Weird Al Show]]'' wound up getting compromised by [[Executive Meddling]] to fit the mandates.
:At the same time, [[Media Watchdog|FCC regulations]], voluntary guidelines, and pressure from [[Moral Guardians|parents' and teachers' groups]] rebuilt the wall between advertising and children's entertainment. This killed lucrative [[Merchandise-Driven]] cartoons and hamstrung the traditional Saturday morning advertisers (cereal, snack food, and toy companies) so much that it's too expensive for them to advertise on television without disclaiming everything or trying to somehow impart that their cereal is healthy or their toy is educational in some way. It's much cheaper for them to put up a website for their product, or create their own cable networks ([[The Hub|like Hasbro did]]), and go after them that way. As a result...
** Only [[The CW]] (successor to [[The WB]] and [[UPN]]) currently{{when}} maintains a full-length Saturday morning block, [[Toonzai]], made by [[4Kids! Entertainment]].
** [[NBC]] and [[CBS]] broadcast blocks at the three-hour minimum required by federal mandates, consisting of shows supplied by different companies.
** [[FOX]] was able to avoid the federal mandates by [[Loophole Abuse|exploiting loopholes]], but subsequently abandoned their Saturday-morning animation block altogether and now their programming consists of [[Infomercial|infomercials]] (though a few affiliates, and even some O&Os, don't bother to take it since the money goes to FOX).
** [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] abandoned their block in favor of "Litton's Weekend Adventure", a syndicated programming block meeting the aforementioned federal mandates (the block is broadcast by ABC stations only, though it is part of a syndication deal).
** The FCC regulations prohibited the host of a kids' show from endorsing a toy or a cereal, resulting in the extinction of locally-produced, live-action kids' shows, as it no longer made economic sense to pay someone to host a show instead of just showing all cartoons. The longest holdout was probably the original ''Bozo Show'' on WGN in Chicago, which ended in 2001; the last four years had Bozo wedging boring tours of Chicago landmarks and factories into the show to get the E/I bug on the screen.
* The British satellite station Bravo (unrelated to the American Bravo mentioned above) began as a channel showing black and white TV from the 1960s (mostly Lew Grade action shows), dropped this in favour of [[Speculative Fiction]] and horror, dumped ''that'' for [[True Crime]] shows and "adult programming", and in the end of its run showed an eclectic mix of programmes that could best be described as "lad's mag/men's magazine television". In other words, the British version of [[Spike TV]], right down to them both showing [[TNA]] Wrestling and UFC as the big draws. It also ran sci-fi repeats (mainly ''[[Star Trek:
* In a related case to both Bravo UK and ABC Family, the UK version of the Family Channel eventually reduced itself within four years into constant "Family Challenge" game show marathons before giving up the pretence and rebranding itself as Challenge TV, the British equivalent of the Game Show Network. As further decay on ''that'' genre, it then later starting showing poker tournament blocks and, along with it, films like ''[[Casino]]'', but the block has since been dropped. The sale of both Challenge and Bravo to Sky in 2010 and Bravo's subsequent closure in 2011 meant that Challenge is now the home of TNA Wrestling. Not to mention that as the years go on, Challenge's library of programs seems to get smaller. As of current, it looks like they are not showing any program older than 1990. Makes it rather annoying if you are a fan of a show such as Bullseye and wish to see any episodes from the early 80s through to 1989.
* Imparja was created to service indigenous Australians in Central Australia, but, thanks to network aggregation, it is now essentially Channel Nine from Sydney with a couple of breakaway programmes.
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* UK Gold went from a mix of the BBC and Thames archives, to suffering the same "six months ago is classic" syndrome the US "classic" TV channels seem to have suffered, with a sprinkling of fairly recent Hollywood films and repeats of ''[[Prison Break]]''. It's now been split into the backronymed G.O.L.D. ("Go On, Laugh Daily"), a comedy channel mostly recycling all the same old shows that are always repeated... and Watch, which takes the rest of the "classic" output of UK Gold.
* Centric used to be called BET Jazz and focused on, believe it or not, jazz. Concerts, videos, wonderful old Panoram films, occasional spoken-word programs, and pretty much nothing else, 24/7. The revamped version is mostly talk shows and general-interest programming aimed at a relatively mature African-American audience; the little music they play is Caribbean or soul.
* In Latin America, ''Infinito'' was a cable channel that used to show documentaries about conspiracy theories, UFOs, Atlantis, [[Hollywood Global Warming]] (before it became mainstream), alternative medicine, and related stuff. Suddenly, in the mid-2000s, the channel started to mutate into a really bad Travel Channel wannabe, showcasing documentaries about New Age society, alternative lifestyles, Feng Shui, and spas which no one cares about. By 2009, it had completely ditched its original concept revolving around [[Magic-Powered Pseudoscience|alternative sciences]], and marketed itself as a serious documentary channel about crimes, the human mind, and historical tidbits. Then it started to decay again in mid-2009, when it started to showcase movies based on [[Real Life]] stories and events. As of January 2012, it rarely showcases documentaries, and most of its programming consists on films based on [[Real Life]] events and shows from [[Spike TV]].
* AXN was originally meant to be an all-action channel, but now they run movies and TV series in general. Most of their shows are not even action-oriented. Their signature shows include [[CSI: Miami|all]] [[CSI: NY|three]] ''[[CSI]]'' shows, ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'', ''[[The Amazing Race]]'', and now ''[[So You Think You Can Dance]]''. [[Tropes Are Not Bad|Strangely enough, not a bad thing]] as the action genre and syndicated action series have decayed since AXN's launch, necessitating a strategy change.
* The Spanish cable channel Buzz was once focused on anime, and one of the few, if not the only place in Spain to ever show [[Seinen|Seinens]] and subbed anime. Then they started showing more unrelated stuff (Western animated shows? Sure. Extreme sports? Uh...), and for a while the only anime-related thing they aired was ([[Or So I Heard|according to the cable provider's TV Guide]]) [[Hentai]] movies on weekends...and then, eventually, even those were removed.
* The [[TV Guide]] Channel, formerly the Preview Guide or Prevue Channel. Originally, it was a nice little channel that gave the local TV listings and the weather, along with unobtrusive text ads, using [
* Fine Living Network, a sibling to [[Food Network]] and HGTV, was revamped into Cooking Channel on May 31, 2010 (though Fine Living already showed some food-related programming). By the time of the overhaul, "Fine Living" didn't really fit its name, as much of its programming consisted of shows that used to/should be on Food Network or HGTV, things which made the "fine" in the name seem superfluous (if you take it to mean "of high quality", though the word has myriad meanings).
:To clarify, Scripps Networks (parent of Food Network, HGTV, and DIY among others) launched Fine Living as an upscale lifestyle-oriented network, with emphasis on the upscale (thus the "fine"). It was basically a classy version of Food Network/HGTV and Travel Channel rolled into one. There were a lot of shows about wine and entertaining, travel to exotic locales, and the home decor/gardening shows definitely didn't have low budgets in mind. Somewhere along the line it fell victim to the usual problems, and became a dumping ground for shows from the other Scripps networks. Its decay can probably be traced right back to Food Network and HGTV's decay, but it was also a victim of bad timing more than anything, with the economy tanking (though the slide began before then). When people's McMansions are being foreclosed on, they probably don't give a crap about hosting parties in them, and showing a program literally called ''I Want That!'' in a recession is [[Big No|probably not a good idea]]. Given how badly Food Network sucks now, though, the retool of this network might be a blessing in disguise. That said, [https://web.archive.org/web/20130811031947/http://www.wealthtv.com/ someone] still seems to think there's a market for the original concept, but [https://web.archive.org/web/20111228040410/http://hd.engadget.com/2007/12/12/wealthtv-conspiracy-theorists-issue-anti-engadget-press-release/ don't remind anyone with HD cable service of that fact.] Along with [[Mav TV]] and any outdoor channel producing content for pennies, Wealth TV is a major [[Berserk Button]] channel since it takes a slot that could air actual programming more than 21 people in a service area would watch...and instead airs inane programming that appeals to a very select few.
* Planet Green replaced Discovery Home as a channel which was intended to jump on the trend of 'going green' in 2008 by airing a schedule of programming solely involving green and environmental programming. However the economic meltdown and people angered because Discovery threw off all the Home programming without placing it anywhere (only ''[[Holmes On Homes]]'' remains, and that's because HGTV Canada produces it and the US HGTV took it the moment Discovery stopped carrying it), pretty much made programming a network about a lifestyle that required lots of [[Money, Dear Boy|that other kind of "green"]] to maintain untenable for the long run. A couple of non-green programs snuck on the schedule in 2009, and because of the incredible viewer apathy the network receives even among green enthusiasts, it's pretty well on the road to ruin only three years after its launch. Their original shows after the first year now have very little to almost no relation to the environment at all, such as a show about Canadian restaurants run by prisoners on work release and ex-cons. The most mentionable being about two [[Reality Show|business executives learning how to run a farm from the internet]].
:With the ratings very low, it's now airing shows about oil drilling in North Dakota and the people lucky enough to make money from it (no, [[Completely Missing the Point|that's not green at all]]), programs about UFOs ([[A Worldwide Punomenon|little "green" men landing on a "planet"?]] Does that count?), a series about loggers who use helicopters to collect lumber (chopping down trees is "green" now?), ghost stories, and reruns of stuff Discovery has aired to death on their other networks, but can't air after other network conversions (historical documentaries that used to air on Discovery Times, which is now Investigation Discovery, for instance). Meanwhile, the actual "green" programming was stuck in the [[Friday Night Death Slot|middle of the night]] and completely ignored (as of 2012 the shows are completely gone), while the network's logo has been recolored '''red'''. And now Discovery's CEO has even said the channel is on life support.
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:The reason for these odd programming choices? To give the channel '''any''' ratings life ahead of Memorial Day 2012, when the channel will relaunch as Destination America, which turns up the [[Patriotic Fervor]] to 11 and features nothing but [[Eagle Land]] programs and pretty much is Discovery admitting they shouldn't have sold the Travel Channel, which carried much of this programming until it was sold off, and that they had the worst timing ever in launching Planet Green.
:Among the programming in Destination America's first few days: marathons of David Blaine specials, ''Destroyed In Seconds'', and ''[[A Haunting]]'', and ''[[LA Ink]]''. Does it count as decay if you're doing it in the very first block of programming?
* [[Logo]], an LGBT-centered channel, a problem with finding memorable shows that are relevant after inexplicably cancelling its two highest rated shows (''Noah's Arc'', a soap opera about gay men of color, and ''[[Rick and Steve]]'', an animated satire)...so it seems they'd rather just go with popular stuff instead, such as ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' and only showing clips in ads of Willow and Tara, and hype it up like it's the premise. They also aired ''[[Thelma and Louise]]'', even though it's just about two straight women evading the law. But now they're also showing ''[[Daria]]'', to which there's ''nothing'' directly or indirectly mentioning homosexuality except for a bi girl who flirts with Jane in the first TV movie. The fact that all three shows have heavy servings of [[Les Yay]] offer some arguable justification, but not much. And now Logo is [https://web.archive.org/web/20130916004935/http://lgbtweekly.com/2012/03/02/logo-network-bails-on-gay-centric-tv-programming/ ditching its gay-themed programming] for more "mainstream culture", and thus, abandoning it's original concept entirely.
* Lone Star was a Canadian cable channel that showed nothing but westerns (movies and old TV shows) when it first started in 2001. After several years, it added non-western action movies to its lineup, until they dominated the schedule. In 2008, the station rebranded itself as [[Movie Time]]. The American equivalent, Encore Westerns on the other hand hasn't decayed by design, since it's part of the Starz premium package that you pay extra for to get a channel devoted to westerns.
* DIY Network started out as a channel which had wonderful programming which laid out projects step by step in such diverse genres as knitting, scrapbooking, car care, basic home maintenance, and larger projects. However as the years have gone by the instructional programming has been pushed off to accommodate the shows on HGTV's schedule which didn't fit the "Buy, buy, buy! Remodel, remodel, remodel! Redecorate all you want, the fun times never end!" programming model that was at its worst at the height of the housing bubble. Currently{{when}} it's a mix of those older shows, along with shallow and inaccessible programming designed to appeal to the "king of the castle" guy like ''Cool Tools'', and programs consisting entirely of outdated tips spewed out by rent-a-spokesmen on the "Today Show''.
* Television New Zealand (TVNZ) since the late 1980s (specifically TV1 and TV2) went from a mainly BBC-style license fee-funded model to a mainly advertising-funded model - as of 2011, 90% of TVNZ's revenue was from advertising. As a result, it shifted visibly towards the [[Lowest Common Denominator]], and [[Your Mileage May Vary|whether it's a good or a bad thing depends on one's political and economic viewpoint]].
** Inverted with TVNZ-6 and TVNZ-7, which were spun off from TVNZ as part of New Zealand's Freeview digital TV platform in 2008. These 2 channels were explicitly public broadcasting-oriented, in comparison with the heavily commercialised TV1 and TV2. However, a change of government and subsequent non-renewal of funding have meant TVNZ-6 has been turned into the commercial youth channel TVNZ-U, and TVNZ-7 is to go off the air for good in 2012.
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* Filipino Free-to-air channel [[TV 5]] started out as a youth-oriented channel with less news, thanks to the ''Animega'' block. But when they got so popular with the public, this went over their head and deleted the block, put a variety show in the evening, and put in horrible Filipino dubs of [[Cartoon Network]] and [[Disney Channel]] shows (try to imagine [[Hannah Montana]] speaking Tagalog... horrible right?), and even dubbed the ''movies'' that air in the channel's movie block and made it an ''all-masa (masses) station''. Many youths are pissed off with the changes and the deletion of the block, that many of them are asking the channel to bring it back to the way it was, but the higher-ups in the channel didn't care at all.
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