Ovation - America's Only Arts Network

Bank clerk T.S. Eliot wrote poetry at night. There are many of us who, like Elliot, “bleed between two lives”; left brain by day, right brain by night. But then there are those fortunate people at Ovation who are surrounded by art as part of their corporate experience every day.

Ovation, in a soft re-launch, is emerging to be the one media company that recognizes that art is everywhere. Their embrace of the arts – whether that means ballet, opera, street art, food, tattoo, home design, fashion, literature or cinema – marks them as America’s only true art network. When you think of it, “art networks” have preceded Ovation but they eventually decide to mainstream out of the arts – A&E and Bravo are two examples. But thankfully Ovation not only keeps the creative flame burning, it is embracing arts programming with advocacy and cause based marketing efforts.

Chief Creative Officer Rob Weiss presented at Ovation’s press upfront at Jazz Lincoln Center giving an exciting overview of where the network is headed in 2013 and 2014. The network unveiled nine new original series scheduled to premiere in 2013 and revealed its 2014 development slate, consisting of 16 additional series. Here is a link to some of the exciting programming coming up for next season.

Ovation is committed to Arts Advocacy through Cable in the Classroom, work with the NEA and arts educators across the nation.  And it accentuates the Power of Art through it programming, outreach, community and a wider digital presence that expands the definition of art to make it more inclusive and global. They have created their own in-house production facility to keep the brand consistent and focused. Art even jumps off the media platform with This Week’s Wall where artists will be invited to Ovation’s LA offices to transform the office walls with their art.  

Obviously a dedication to the arts pays off. Ovation as a 45 million home network is one of the fastest growing cable networks in audience delivery with +20% year to year compared to +12% for other mid-tier networks and -1% for the larger cable networks. It’s commitment to digital includes an already thriving artist community containing over 200k art pieces (including some of mine), a YouTube channel, Twitter’s #OvationTV, 2.5 million viewers choice votes on Facebook and a presence on Instagram, Pinterest and Viggle. The executive suite at Ovation is justifiably excited. 

Both high and low art can be presented in a contemporary fresh and exciting way for today’s media enthusiasts. Indeed, art is the economic driver of cities, the secret sauce for student success and the inspiration for a myriad of global problem solving. Ovation, with its commitment to arts programming, content, advocacy and outreach is one of the truly unique networks in the media space today. Advertisers (and Time Warner) take note.