As AETN is the parent corporation of several smaller cable channels, its ownership is shared by three larger media conglomerates. A&E is owned 37.5 percent by the Hearst Corporation, 37.5 percent by ABC, and 25 percent by NBC. Though Hearst has recently downsized its television operations, its interest in A&E has remained unchanged.

Since the channel’s initial telecast, Nickolas Davatzes has held the title of president and CEO, A&E Television Networks. Davatzes received the NCTA’s Vanguard Award for distinguished leadership in June 2003 for his many years of cable industry service.

Over the years, A&E programming has garnered many awards. Most honors have been Emmys from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, but other organizations have acknowledged A&E’s quality as well. The programs The Crossing and Pride and Prejudice were recognized with Peabody trophies. The 23rd Annual Banff Television Festival gave its outstanding achievement award to the A&E Channel as a whole. In 2003, A&E Network’s Biography won the Producer’s Guild Award for reality/game/in formational series. During the years that the National Academy of Cable Programming awarded CableAce Awards, A&E won 88 times.

Since its first nomination in 1990 for best children’s program for All Creatures Big and Small, the channel has been selected to vie for 65 Emmy Awards (20 in 1999 alone) and has won the golden statue 12 times. A&E’s shows competing for awards included The House of Elliott, Napoleon, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s Emma, Investigative Reports’ The Farm: Life Inside Angola Prison, Dash and Lilly, PT Barnum, and Peter Pan Starring Cathy Rigby. The long-running Biography series collected 11 Emmy nominations with two wins (for Judy Garland and the Rat Pack); the drama Horatio Hornblower had 11 nominations and two wins. In 2000, the channel won the academy’s Governor’s Award for its Biography Project for Schools.

Although A&E has had a strong success record within the cable industry, the past few years have been the most difficult in terms of corporate management. As compared to the majority of cable networks, A&E had stellar performance under former general manager Brooke Bailey Johnson. When she resigned in 2000 after ten years with the company, viewers saw a difference. Audiences declined dramatically during the 2000–2001 season. In the earlier years, A&E provided an eclectic mix of off-network crime dramas, BBC mysteries, dramedy such as Northern Exposure, and original series aimed at a target audience of mature women. Those shows centered around A&E signature programming such as Biography and Investigative Reports.

Of its shows, the highest ratings routinely came from the Biography series and off-network reruns such as Law & Order. In 1999, the Hollywood Reporter listed those two shows within the top five cable programs in terms of advertising revenue, with no other A&E series placing within the top 50. A&E showed the Dick Wolf-produced crime drama at least twice during the day, airing a more recent episode weekly at night, and often had multihour marathons during the weekend. In 1999, A&E did not choose to renew Law & Order; the domestic syndication rights were purchased by TNT. The asking price rose from A&E’s $150,000 per episode to the $800,000 per episode ultimately paid by the AOL Time Warner–owned channel. Similarly, Hallmark bought the license to rerun Northern Exposure.

Biography seemingly lost some of its singularity as cablers such as VH1, E!, and Court TV replicated Biography’s core formula to fit their own programming needs. In addition, A&E created separate cable channels for both the History Channel and the Biography Channel, giving fans another location, around the clock, to see favorite shows. A&E placed its development dollars into first-run drama that impressed Emmy voters but did not draw the steady, large numbers reminiscent of Law & Order. After a nearly 10-percent increase in viewers from 1998 to 1999, A&E suffered a 33-percent decline in viewers from 2000 to 2001, primarily in the 25-to-54 demographic.

While A&E’s cable audience numbers declined, its video and DVD sales climbed at warehouse mass market stores and through Internet sales. In July 2001 sales spikes were reported for double disc sets of special interest “Collector’s Choice” selling at $19.95 and running about three and one half hours each. Titles included “The Wonders of Ancient Egypt,” “The Civil War Journal,” and the award-winning “The Rat Pack.” Through the DVD sales, the company sells segments of A&E’s original productions, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman with extras such as a Biography segment on Jane Seymour, and imports such as The Avengers, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and The Prisoner. In 2002 A&E earned fourth place in market share of TV DVDs behind HBO Home Video, FOX Home Entertainment, and Paramount Home Entertainment.

To try to improve viewership levels on cable, the channel brought in new teams of programmers to reshape and rebrand the channel. Throughout this period, A&E remained a top-ten cable network. Alan Sabinson, formerly of TNT and Showtime, attempted to create quality programming including the series Nero Wolfe and 100 Centre Street, and A&E licensed a daily “repurposed” showing of ABC’s daytime talk show The View. During his year-and-a-half tenure, working with an annual programming budget of about $200 million, he succeeded with critics but failed with the channel’s general audience. The budget allowed Sabinson to try new quality shows at the expense of outbidding TNT for Law & Order.

In late 2002 Abbe Raven, a 16-year veteran of the company, took over as general manager. Her answers to the problems include spending money for film rights, first-run movies for television, artful reality programming (Makeover Mamas and The Well Seasoned Traveler), new dramas (MI-5), off-network shows (Third Watch, Crossing Jordan, and Columbo), and A&E’s signature shows. The company purchased 45 “art house” films geared toward its primary audience.

Programming planned for the 2003–4 season, according to Nancy Dubuc, vice president of documentary programming at A&E, includes a biographical movie about Senator Hillary Clinton and a reality show, House of Dreams, where several couples will compete “to plan, design, build and decorate their dream house.” These shows will be delivered to affiliates through digital feeds, unlike past seasons where the channel utilized analog technology.

A&E often utilizes well-respected news personalities, past and present, to host its signature programming. This includes ABC’s Harry Smith for Biography and Joan Lunden for Behind Closed Doors, CBS’s Bill Kurtis anchors Cold Case Files and American Justice, and Mark McEwen hosts Live by Request. Former Northern Exposure and Sex in the City star John Corbett gave his voice to The Love Chronicles, an A&E documentary attempt that lasted one season. Actor Paul Winfield provides the narration for the ongoing City Confidential; classical radio personality Elliott Forrest has conducted interviews for the channel’s Breakfast with the Arts for more than a decade. In addition, Forrest licensed radio rights for Biography from A&E; he produces a weekly Biography radiocast aired to over 100 U.S. stations.

A&E answers to three masters, and it is still in the midst of rebranding itself after a viewership decline in the late 1990s. By changing its programming personnel, taking time to understand the new TV viewer, updating its operational technology, tightening its corporate spending, and embracing reality TV, the channel is showing viewer improvement. Although some programmers and branch sales offices are gone, the core offerings of the channel—Biography, original dramas, British imports, top-named concerts, prestigious award shows such as the annual George Foster Peabody Awards, and similar accessible yet highbrow programs—remain, letting viewers know their dial is set to the same old A&E, now streamlined for the new millennium.