Anticipating a future where television viewers can order from a nearly limitless supply of content on demand, Matt Strauss wants to make sure that every conceivable hobbyist and special interest group will find programs that suit their cat, dog or car fancy.
Oh, and he might want to slip in a few targeted ads, too.
Strauss is general manager of Mag Rack, a service from Cablevision's Rainbow Media that allows digital cable customers to order programs on demand from a series of specialty video magazines. Current titles include Celebrating Dogs, Club Vegetarian and the No. 1 hit, Classic Cars.
Mag Rack, available on Cablevision's Interactive Optimum service since September 2001, recently launched on Insight's cable system and is due to appear on Charter's system in November. It is being offered for free to digital cable subscribers and, including the Charter deal, it will reach more than 1.6 million households by year's end.
Insight covers Kentucky and Louisiana. Charter will offer Mag Rack in St. Louis; Los Angeles; Fort Worth, Texas; and Greenville/Spartanburg, South Carolina.
In reaching out to smaller, more tightly focused customer niches, Mag Rack continues along a path of ever-increasing specialization that began with the explosion of cable channels.
Channels like Discovery that were once specialty alternatives to the mainstream networks have multiplied into families of offerings such as Discovery Kids, Discovery Wings, Discovery Civilization and Discovery Science.
Satellite and digital cable packages boasting up to 500 channels turn up the pressure to target newer, smaller interest groups.
In August, children's network Nickelodeon announced the acquisition of the Noggin network, which will market specifically to preteen Nickelodeon viewers. Another recent venture, an all-martial arts channel called Blackbelt TV, is set to launch on digital cable in the spring.
But Strauss says companies that target new audiences by creating additional channels are missing the boat.
"I don't think launching more 24-by-7 linear channels is the future of television," he said.
Strauss said programmers can reach niche groups more easily and efficiently through on-demand services, which are expected to become increasingly popular as they roll out across the country.
At a trade show last week, Forrester Research forecast that by 2007, 30 percent of television would be viewed on demand.
And while Strauss noted that Mag Rack currently competes for on-demand server capacity at the cable plant -- its entire library on both Insight and Charter must be limited to 40 hours -- he also expects that these limitations will eventually melt away in a "sea of choice" for consumers.
Yvette Gordon-Kanouff agreed that cable operators "look at tens of thousands of hours of (on-demand) programming as where they're going to be no matter what." Gordon-Kanouff's company, SeaChange International, sells the video-on-demand servers necessary for storing and streaming content to millions of viewers.
The ultimate problem for cable companies, Gordon-Kanouff said, is not capacity but that "there is so much possibility (for adding content) that it has to be a solid marketing approach." She said niche programmers must persuade cable companies that their content is as valuable, or more so, than other television assets (like old Friends episodes) that could be offered on demand.
That's where the advertising comes in.
Strauss insists hobbyists actually welcome ads related to their interests, making them a more valuable audience.
"In print, as you go more niche there's as much advertising as there is editorial," he said. While Mag Rack's shows are currently commercial-free, Strauss plans to introduce ads sometime next year when the service takes off.
And he plans to give advertisers as many ducks as possible to shoot at.
"I think no niche is too small," he said. "I think there are just some niches that we won't cover as deep."
