Dumbest Network Name Ever? Tell Me Tru

By James Poniewozik | @poniewozik | July 12, 2007 | +

Mark it on your calendars: as of January 1, 2008, Court TV will no longer exist. The legal channel is becoming “TruTV,” recognizing its shift of focus away from trial coverage to reality shows.

This Reuters article includes any number of risible TV-biz-isms, one of the choicest being the network’s explanation that it’s going after an audience it calls “real engagers.” (Yes, TV executives actually talk like this. Is it any wonder so much television is so well-written?) But I have to question the decision to change a well-recognized brand name simply because the network’s programming has, you know, nothing to do with its name anymore. That doesn’t seem to be a problem for the folks over at the History Channel. You think there were Ice Road Truckers at Omaha Beach?

Anyway, I want to turn a more pressing matter over to you: is TruTV the dumbest name ever devised for a network, or are there worse? Spike and The CW, the gauntlet has been thrown!

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p_lukasiak

Actually, I think that Spike was a good name, considering the demographic it was aiming for originally….

And TrueTV would be a good name — but TruTV sounds like a network that specializes in reruns of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Glass Harp. (I bet TrueTV is copyrighted by someone else!)
Keith

Hmmmm, I don’t see reality based programs as “true”. Perhaps a better name would have been RealTV.
LB

I’m betting that any name which started with the letters “R-e-a-l” would’ve brought upon them the wrath of or undue association with RealNetworks (of RealPlayer fame, or infamy if you prefer.)

It had to be something like that, because they surely seem to hammer that it’s real, real, real — as in this article http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2007/07/09/daily18.html
which takes us one step beyond “real engagers” to let us know that Turner has identified these folks as a “psychographic” (their quotes) made up of “people who watch a tremendous amount of television and love real-life action programming”.

The words psycho, graphic, tremendous, and love, all in the same sentence just sounds … creepy. Cue visions of Kathy Bates in Stephen King’s Misery.

Oh, the other funny bit here is that it’s not bad enough about the name spelling being faux nouveau hipster goofy. It’s even (not) *capitalized* in a faux hipster-y fashion, i.e. it’s “tru TV”.

Aha. Found the TrueTV reference. It’s the name of the network in the movie EDtv. Mmmyyeah… probably taking on that association would’ve been even less palatable than dealing with the RealPlayer guys. Spike probably already has exclusive rights to Matt McConaughey anyhow.
Keith

LB,

I did wonder about the RealPlayer issue.

Perhaps CheapTV since reality based programming is cheaper to produce.