Pivot was made for me and soon it will be gone
TerraCycle Include USA Human Resources Pivot
We have just a few months left with Pivot, sometimes known as the Joseph Gordon-Levitt channel, the “Friday Night Lights” channel, or “that channel with all of the sad commercials about abused dogs.”
Participant Media, which launched Pivot in 2013, announced Aug. 17 that it would be closing up shop at the cable network later this year. Pivot was best known for its tent-pole program, “Hit Record on TV with Joseph Gordon-Levitt,” a variety show created by the actor and inspired by his upbeat collaborative production company.
“While this conclusion was not an easy one,” Participant Media CEO David Linde said in a statement of Pivot’s demise, “it is ultimately in the best interest of all our stakeholders, and allows us to allocate more resources toward the production of compelling content across all platforms.”
Putting an end to Pivot might be the best decision for investors, but to me, the end of the network is a great sadness.
The network had its own reality show, but this was Pivot, so it was no “Real Housewives.” Its take on the genre was “Human Resources,” which followed the happenings at the recycling company TerraCycle in Trenton, N.J. Even when plotlines got dramatic, it was all about bettering the world.
Deborah Jaramillo, associate professor of Film and Television Studies at Boston University, has some theories about why. She’s studied how cable networks evolve, and what it means to have a network identity. Her best example is AMC, which used to have one goal: airing classic cinema. AMC took its platform to another level when it launched its own similarly-themed original programs, such as “Remember WENN,” about a radio station in the 1930s and ’40s.
But over time, AMC realized it couldn’t survive with such a restricted focus. It began showing newer movies and relying more on advertising, Jaramillo says. Over the years, it became what it is now — the network that made “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad” and, more recently, “The Night Manager.” During the day, though, it airs random films like “The Mummy.”
Jaramillo says Pivot may have been too specific with its mission, just like AMC was in its early years. Pivot needed its syndicated material to have “more mass appeal, while maintaining that socially conscious message.”
Pivot probably also should have thought beyond millennials at launch, Jaramillo says, because many young people — including her students at Boston University — rely on streaming devices. (Even Jaramillo says she discovered the British thriller “Fortitude,” which airs in the United States on Pivot, through Amazon.)
The perfect audience for Pivot, Jaramillo agreed, was actually me — an older-than-millennial who has time to binge-watch old favorites, is open-minded enough to consider new shows, and wants to feel better about watching so much TV.
Come fall, when Pivot is expected to start to fade away, I’ll have to go back to feeling conflicted about my television consumption. I’ll have to go back to getting my “Buffy” on Netflix, without commentary, like everyone else.