Outdoor Channel Loses Popular TV Shows to The Sportsman Channel.
Ten Intermedia Outdoors television shows, including popular shooting sports shows, will no longer be broadcast on the Outdoor Channel next season. The line-up of shows includes: “Guns & Ammo Television,” “Guns & Ammo Television Classics,” “In-Fisherman Television,” “In-Fisherman Critical Concepts,” “North American Whitetail Television,” “Bowhunter Magazine TV,” “Personal Defense TV,” “Shallow Water Angler,” “In-Fisherman Professional Walleye Trail” and “Petersen’s Hunting ADVENTURE Television.”
These shows will continue to run, but on a different cable network — The Sportsman Channel (TSC), which Intermedia Outdoors acquired last year. (See Related Story).
Intermedia pulled a large block of TV content from the Outdoor Channel and will use those shows in the future as the backbone of its own network. In a press release, Intermedia Outdoors CEO Jeff Paro declared: “We are going to build The Sportsman Channel into the leading outdoor network, both in distribution and ratings. Shifting all of our programming to TSC is a major first step in that direction. We have led in every outdoors category we have entered-magazine, internet, and television production-and now we will lead in networks.” Paro continued: “We will actively and aggressively program TSC with hunting, shooting and fishing content, with a focus on high-quality original programming….”
Jim Shepard, editor of The Outdoor Wire, believes that the Outdoor Channel was hit hard by Intermedia’s decision to move its TV shows: “In one shot, InterMedia Outdoors has announced to the television industry that it not only intends to become the major player in outdoor television, it is quite willing to hammer its former partner in a very public manner.”
