Poker Central Launches Today At 8PM EST

Poker Central, the world’s first dedicated cable poker network, is set to debut today in the US, giving numerous poker fans the opportunity to catch their favorite poker shows around the clock. As well as featuring its own original content, such as Pokerography and Inside Poker, the new channel will also show several classic series, including Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker. Commenting on its imminent launch, Poker Central CEO Clint Stinchcomb, said:
“Poker Central is about to super serve the tens of millions of passionate and sophisticated poker fans in the United States and around the world. With thousands of hours of new, fresh content, Poker Central aims to entertain as well as it informs.”
To help bolster its audience appeal, Poker Central has already established sponsored partnerships with a number of well-known pros, including Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, and Antonio Esfandiari. As Clint Stinchcomb explains:
“Television and Internet have made poker play global and universal, giving rise to a new set of stars outside of Hollywood and traditional sports.’
Coinciding with the channel’s launch, viewers will therefore have the opportunity to travel to Las Vegas, and have a poker session with one of these stars, simply by sending an image of their best “poker face” to the Poker Central website. The winner will then be chosen by the aforementioned panel of three poker pros.
Poker Central has a tough task ahead of it, though, and whether it will be able to reverse the declining popularity of televised poker shows remains to be seen. While televised poker dates back to the 1970’s, the use of hole cam technology helped transform poker broadcasting, leading to its peak popularity in the 1990s and early 2000s. Since then, televised poker has become more predictable, resulting in audience numbers falling off sharply. Case in point, the 2014 WSOP Main Event televised final table attracted around half the audience the November Nine did at its peak, with poker fans now able to enjoy content through a variety of other ways, including live streaming via Twitch.