David Lieberman, the veteran media reporter for
USA Today, asked Betty Cohen, the CEO of cable channel Lifetime, why Lifetime was abandoning its familiar "Television for Women" tag line.
Cohen, who's been on the job for a year, answered: "What women are saying is: Don't tell me you're television for women. I'll be the judge of that. It reminds me of what I heard when I was running
Cartoon Network and even back when I was at Nickelodeon. If you have to say to kids, 'Watch this show, it's fun,' then how fun is it--not? I also thought that 'Television for Women' was increasingly
limiting because of the word television.' Lifetime has the opportunity, if we play it right, to be the leading integrated electronic media company for women. That's what we should be. Not just a
cable network." Lieberman also asked Cohen about the channel's downscale image, to which the exec took some umbrage: "You can't afford to go after a purely upscale audience, because a purely upscale
audience doesn't watch a lot of TV. And by the way, about that perception of Lifetime: Lifetime ended 2005 as a top five network among women 18 to 49, as well as in households with incomes above
$100,000."
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