The channel's main competitor for the SF-only programming niche, USA Networks' Sci-Fi Channel, airs nearly a complete schedule of genre-oriented series and films. Only late-night and early-morning infomercials interrupt the flow of SF reruns and originals, which include the sleeper hit Farscape.
All Beyond programming will be aired with fully digital sound and picture, paving the way for the main Showtime feed's transition to the high-definition television (HDTV) format in early 2000.
Sumner's dream comes true?
Although the new channel is an ambitious leap into the SF marketplace, it is unlikely to be the long-rumored "Viacom SF cable channel."
Like parent company Showtime Networks, Showtime Beyond is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Viacom media empire. Sumner Redstone, Viacom chairman and CEO, has reportedly been looking to launch a new SF channel since the alliance between his company and rival empire Seagram fell apart in 1997, casting the SciFi Channel adrift along with the rest of the USA Networks TV family.
USA Networks was eventually purchased for $4 billion by the Home Shopping Network.
Redstone vowed to create a new SF channel immediately after losing SciFi, but, under the terms of the USA Networks sale, Viacom agreed not to compete directly with its estranged assets before 2001.
As a result, most entertainment analysts had expected Redstone to wait a few years to get his futuristic wish. The noncompetition agreement notwithstanding, the SciFi Channel still holds certain key broadcast rights, including the crown jewel of SF TV, the original Star Trek series, that will not expire for some time.
Star Trek's long-term home obscure
Meanwhile, the recent $35 billion merger of Viacom with venerable broadcast network CBS has prompted many Trek fans to wonder about what will happen to future incarnations of their favorite show. Anti-monopoly concerns may force Viacom to sell off its half stake in the UPN network, where Star Trek: Voyager currently resides.
Through its Paramount unit, Viacom owns the entire Star Trek library. Fortuitously, Voyager, which has been one of the struggling United Paramount Network's (UPN) few successes, will end production a year after its upcoming sixth and penultimate season runs its course.
Although plans are on the block for at least one more Star Trek series, few details have been announced about the show's subject matter, much less its eventual network home.
Industry speculation has tended to leave future Trek installments to the UPN, but this could be thrown into doubt if Viacom ends its association with the network. Instead, the unborn series could go to CBS or air in syndication as did earlier Trek sagas Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.
With a premium-cable audience and no first-run programming currently on its schedule (Stargate and other programs run on the original channel first), Showtime Beyond is unlikely to see new Trek in the foreseeable future. A basic subscriber cable channel like Redstone's dream replacement for SciFi would be a better bet, but even then the care and feeding of a new -- and likely expensive -- SF weekly series may be unworkable.
That said, Next Generation and Deep Space Nine may well find a permanent home on the rumored "Redstone Channel" come 2001, when the noncompetition agreement expires. Voyager, which will by then be well into its syndication run, would make a similarly natural fit.
As for the original SciFi Channel that Redstone lost two years ago, USA Chairman and CEO Barry Diller has vowed to throw his corporate resources behind the current reigning SF champion, saying late last year that he would be "pouring money into production" and bringing plenty of original programming to the channel.
Meanwhile, the original Star Trek series -- the adventures of Kirk, Spock and company, now in their fourth decade of reruns -- will continue to air on SciFi. The channel has the rights to the series through 2004.
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