Trio is dead. Long live Trio.

We knew this was coming. Actually, we knew it was coming this day, because NBC Universal was kind enough to inform the 14 members of the press who had ever seen the Trio channel -- and the six of us who cared enough to keep writing about it, long after it was clear it would not survive -- that it was shutting off the channel Dec. 31.

Like many clever ideas, Trio was concocted by Canadians. It started out as a fine arts channel, was passed around by a couple of different owners, and wound up in the hands of Barry Diller, who gave it to an indie film producer named Lauren Zalaznick who'd also worked at VH1.

Zalaznick did a fine job with little more than pocket change and chewing gum assembling a network. Documentaries every night, old Letterman and "Laugh-In" reruns, fun stuff like "Good Clean Porn" (X-rated movies, non-sex scenes only), and a mess of low-cost originals from the endless idea factory known as World of Wonder.

But Trio was stuck on digital cable, and it wasn't going anywhere. Zalaznick was picked up in the NBC/Universal deal and given a much bigger sandbox. Nowadays, Bravo looks a lot like the old Trio, and where it doesn't, well, there's Sundance.

So now the inevitable has occurred. Today, channel 255 on my cable system is airing MSNBC, and Trio is officially off the air. But it lives on as Trio Plus, a broadband channel that Trio started up a couple of years ago so it could show a really nasty (and, of course, hilarious) cartoon from Trey Parker and Matt Stone called "Princess."

Trio Plus isn't much right now, but that could change. After all, NBC Universal is sitting on a mountain of old TV, and you know it's just a matter of time before they follow in Time Warner's footsteps and start offering boatloads of it for video streaming. Right now, Trio Plus is featuring -- under its aptly named "Brilliant But Cancelled" banner -- a two-and-a-half-minute preview of "EZ Streets," which aired ever so briefly on CBS in 1996 and 1997. I wrote at the time: "'EZ Streets' is a show about hard times and the hard choices made by people with few options left in life. It makes us see good in evil people and vice versa, and does so with high purpose."

A show too good for network TV, now streaming for a brand that was too good for cable TV. Brilliant.

Update: Trio gave way to Sleuth, which will retread old NBC and Universal detective shows.

Comments

[Greg Spira]

Out here, Trio has been replaced by the new NBC channel Sleuth, which promises reruns of Miami Vice, Knight Rider, Simon & Simon, Columbo, Homicide, The A-Team, EZ Streets, Deadline, L.A. Dragnet, Karen Sisco, The Equalizer, The Rockford Files, Magnum, PI, and JAG plus some movies.

[a reader writes]

In what sense does Bravo "look like the old Trio?" Endless marathons of Celebrity Poker Challenge? Endless marathons of Project Runway or Queer Eye? A more accurate statement would be that the digital cable network Ovation looks somewhat like the old, old Bravo--with endless reruns of arts features and middlebrow pop music specials. Bravo continues to coast on a reputation it established for being an "arts" network when it only airs one remotely "arts" oriented series (Breakfast with the Arts, mostly pop music, on Sunday mornings)--this never ceases to amaze. Apparently even the critical establishment is fooled by Bravo's P.R.

[Mark Jeffries]

Reader:

You've got Bravo confused with A&E--they're the channel that does "Breakfast with the Arts." Of course, a lot of what you said about Bravo could apply to A&E, as well. And Ovation doesn't run the art films that the old Bravo ran (that ball's been picked up by IFC and Sundance).

The problem is that the audience who would be the most interested in cultural programming is also the audience that detests television the most and is not willing to put down the extra money for cable when in their minds, public television has turned on them, especially at pledge time when classical music is only represented by Three Tenors in a ballpark or that gypsy guy. That is why cultural programming doesn't work on cable TV, unless it's Classic Arts Showcase, of which Lloyd Rigler is not trying to make any money on in the first place.