The Air & Space TV Channel

Colleagues, please enjoy this update on the ongoing mission to spread the passion of flight and space through an adventure, sport and lifestyle TV programming service.  Best regards, Phillip Hurst

An emerging cable TV and Internet channel about the people and stories of flight and space - past, present and future.

Preflight Checklist: (In this issue...) To Fly: Launching Air & Space TV channel The Channel Surf Report STEMming the Decline

High Altitude Charts: TV Viewing by Platform TV and Network Industry Outlook

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To Fly: Launching the Air & Space TV channel As we enter the new season, A&S Media Group continues our mission to launch the first TV channel about flight and space.  Launching SyFy, Golf, Reelz, Nuvo, G4 and other networks, we know this can be another successful channel telling entertaining and inspiring stories to tens of millions of TV homes and Internet viewers. The next step?  Just as Sundance Channel was launched with Robert Redford and Showtime Networks, Golf Channel with Arnold Palmer and PGA Tour, and the new AXSchannel is a collaboration of Mark Cuban and Ryan Seacrest, we believe that the right financial and strategic partners from our own industry will ultimately become the champions and co-founders of an aviation and space channel. So, as we refine programming and marketing plans, A&S Media Group also keeps up our efforts advocating the merits of Air & Space TV.  We're educating industry insiders as to how compelling the channel will be.  We've reached out to many aviation and space industry proponents, including major organizations like AOPA, EAA and NASA, communicating how important it can be to their missions. Support continues to mount and we are confident that, over time, this opportunity will find its way to partners who share the vision and understand the powerful benefits of Air & Space TV...for its partners, viewers, our industry and for the future.  One thing is for certain: we are committed to the pursuit of our primary objective to create a successful, far-reaching media brand with a lasting positive impact and strong legacy.

The Channel Surf Report This is a very active time in the cable network industry, as channel owners seek to capitalize on their distribution footprints.  As a result we’ve seen several transactions where owners have sold or divested their interest in underperforming channels, usually relaunching them with a new programming theme or target audience.  Most notable is the recent sale of Al-Gore-founded Current TV to Al Jazeera for $500M, which is now seen in over 70 million TV homes as Al-Jazeera America.  (Gore reportedly netted over $100M personally from the deal.) In other case network owners rebrand their channel's content by bringing in a strategic partner for joint venture.  Examples of this include OWN, the joint venture between Oprah Winfrey and Discovery Communications which took over the Discovery Health channel slot.  Following the success of Food Channel, Scripps Interactive launched the similarly-themedCooking Network in the place of its strugglingFine Living. As for new channels are not rebrands, some notable celebrities have taken advantage of the Comcast buyout of NBCUniversal.  Part of the conditions for that massive transaction required a “fair licensing fee” launch of a few minority owned-and-operated channels.  Thus you have Ervin “Magic” Johnson launching Aspire,Constantino  “Said” Schwartz starting up Baby First Americas, and Sean “P Diddy” Combs backing the new music-themed Revolt.  Combs, wanting to expand Revolt's reach, has offered $200 million to buy another music channel,Fuse, which reaches 74 million TV homes.  Interestingly, Comb's former sweetheart Jennifer Lopez is also making a bid for Fuse, to add to a channel she supports known asNuvoTV.  NuvoTV itself was rebranded from SiTV,one of the channels A&S Media principals helped launch.

STEMming the Decline Young Eagles. Let's Go Flying. JumpStart. FAASTeamYouth. Careers in Aviation. Educate to Innovate. Live Your Dream. Outreach Aviation. Cleared to Dream.  It seems there are as many programs to encourage more pilots and STEM students as there are organizations.  Probably the most successful program documented to date - Be a Pilot - ended years ago.  That campaign bought 17 weekly commercials on various TV channels encouraging viewers to request a certificate for a $49 introductory flight.  Over a few years, some 260,000 certificates were requested, 20% of which led to flight training.  Even at the problematic, typical student dropout rate of 80%, that accumulates to over 10,000 new pilots -  which is perhaps on par with the entire 20 years of the Young Eagles program. When it comes to mobilizing a mass audience, nothing can touch television - just look at the astounding success of the infomercial business.  Now think of what a channel - whose viewers already have an affinity for its programming theme - could accomplish if it ran not 17, but 50 weekly "learn to fly" or STEM encouragement messages a week! The TV industry also has several examples of national grass-roots activation campaigns that have been quite successful.  Initiatives like Cartoon Network’s "Move it Movement Tour" and Golf Channel’s "Drive, Chip and Putt Tour" harness a combination of a large TV network marketing budget,  affiliate service provider's local market support and the unmatched ability of a channel and its digital extensions to promote and televise events to create powerful, momentum-building outreach programs. We look forward to bringing to bear the reach and resources of a major TV and Internet network for the purpose of growing aviation participation and STEM education.

Despite all the Internet video, the bulk of consumer viewing time is overwhelmingly spent watching live TV.

Rumors of TV's death have been exaggerated. Cable network industry CF will grow at 9.4% CAGR to about $50B by 2021 – twice the $22B, 2012 estimate.  Average CF margin will grow from 40.9% in 2012 to 45.1% by 2021. Total basic network net revenue will grow at a CAGR of 8.2%, reaching $109.69 billion by 2021. (SNL Kagan)

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