Viacom’s cable network, Logo, is going from gay to “gay-ish.”
Launched in the summer of 2005 and aimed at the LGBT community — with shows like “Drag U” and “1 girl 5 gays” — Logo is switching focus and adding programs geared for straight women, The Post has learned.
The switch was first evident this past April when Logo debuted a show about kids’ beauty pageants, “Eden’s Wood,” featuring the child star of TLC’s “Toddlers and Tiaras.”
Other new shows are about gay and married couples adopting kids in “BabyWait,” and gay and straight couples in therapy in “Love Lockdown.”
The change is upsetting some gay TV executives who feel the programming changes have gone too far.
“Maybe as the core focus they are abandoning gay and moving towards what seems to be the primary target: straight women,” one source close to the channel told The Post.
“The word gay is getting left behind a bit,” the source noted.
Logo is using NBCUniversal’s Bravo and Discovery’s TLC as a template of sorts, sources said.
Both channels have shows with high concentrations of gay viewers, according to cable experts.
Logo currently commands six cents per subscriber per month, and is carried in 53.4 million households, according to SNL Kagan estimates.
Affiliate revenue is expected to grow about 18 percent to $35.5 million this year from $30 million in 2011.
Advertising revenue at Logo has been flat at around $18 million between 2009 and 2011 — forecasts have it reaching $21 million in 2012.
The switch away from almost exclusive LGBT programming is no doubt aimed at boosting ad rates and broadening the focus of the niche channel, a move being made by many cable channels.
Other cable networks broadening their focus include A&E TV Networks’ History, which dumped the black-and-white World War II documentaries in favor of hit period dramas such as “Hatfields and McCoys,” while NBCUniversal’s SyFy Channel took the unusual tack of airing a food show last year, “Marcel’s Quantum Kitchen.”
“Shows like ‘Project Runway’ and ‘Real Housewives’ are strong with a gay audience, but not exclusively so,” said Gary Lico, founder and CEO, of CableU, a online analytics company that tracks changes in cable programming.
“If I’m Logo, can I be a bit like [Bravo and TLC] and drop the gay tag and be a bit more androgynous?” he asked.
The network, launched by cable veteran Matt Farber, was always programmed to be inclusive of non-gay themes, but now the network’s top executive says that gay themes permeate the culture so much that the network needs to evolve.
Logo Executive Vice President Lisa Sherman told Multichannel News recently that only 30 percent of the gay audience wanted to live, work and socialize exclusively with other gays, hence the changes.
“About 24 percent of primetime shows on broadcast and cable have a gay story line or gay character because that’s reality and life,” she said.
A spokesman for the channel said: “Gay remains in the DNA.” The network’s tag line is Logo: Beyond Labels.
catkinson@nypost.com
cable network, cable networks, gay audience, Executive Vice President Lisa Sherman, straight women, LGBT community
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