Ha! (TV channel)
Ha!: TV Comedy Network (commonly known as Ha!) was an American pay television channel owned by Viacom; it was one of the first American all-comedy channels available in basic-tier television offers. Launched on April 1, 1990, at 7 p.m. ET,[2] it competed with another startup comedy-oriented cable channel, HBO-owned The Comedy Channel. In 1991, the two channels merged to form Comedy Central.
Country
English
April 1, 1990
April 1, 1991
(1 year, 0 days)
Background[edit]
MTV Networks had carved out a niche for itself in the cable programming marketplace throughout the 1980s with its flagship networks MTV and Nickelodeon. Up until that point, there had been only one instance of competition among genres in the cable industry, that of Ted Turner launching a rival to MTV, Cable Music Channel, which ended up being short-lived and Viacom using the channel space for an older-skewing counterpart to MTV, VH1. At the same time though, research constantly encouraged management that a channel strictly dedicated to comedy programming would be profitable, motivating MTV to forge ahead with plans for a comedy channel. When HBO announced the launch of The Comedy Channel, MTV Networks retaliated by announcing the debut of its own rival channel, Ha![1]