Poker Central TV Shuts in Favor of Digital Pivot

Poker Central, a cable network offering nonstop poker coverage, launched in October 2015 with its target audience the all-important millennial demographic. At the end of this month, however, the 24/7 poker channel has decided to fold its scheduled broadcasts operation in order to better focus its attention on its digital service and web presence.
Consequently, all broadcast live-streaming content will also be discontinued, although such programs will still remain available on demand via platforms such as YouTube, and Twitch. Instead, Poker Central’s television broadcast will switch from being a dedicated channel to one in which it airs ad-supported programs in partnerships with already established channels such as the NBC Sports Network, and CBS Sports Network.
Ultimately, Poker Central will switch from offering a pre-planned schedule to one in which new content is made “available”, and commenting on the recent development, Poker Central president, Joe Kakaty, explained:
“It’s a digital pivot because we saw our millennial audience wanted more content. But they wanted new, original content.”
With this goal in mind, Poker Central will move into 2017 hoping that its new approach will help the enterprise better connect with its intended poker audience. It also would seem to conform to a general trend in the media landscape in which companies are looking to streamline their programming bundles and move away from operating their own cable networks.
“TV is not going away — it’s just how we’ll work with TV that is going to change,” explained Kakaty.
Meanwhile, a company by the name of PokerVision Media has announced that in 2017 it too will be launching a Digital TV channel that it says will “bridge poker, gaming, eSports and sports content with previously unseen levels of interactivity.” Unlike Poker Central which is available to an international audience, however, the PokerVision Media offering is only intendede for the Canadian market.