While many services were dropping the NBCUniversal-owned Chiller Network in recent months, fans have been hoping that the channel would still be kept on the air. Unfortunately NBCUniversal has announced that the channel will be killed completely on January 1, 2018.
As reported by TV Answer Man,
“Low-profile channels like Chiller and Cloo are an endangered species, even for a company with the market clout of NBCUniversal,” Variety explains. “Taking the small fry off the table helps NBCU’s effort to beef up programming and carriage fees for its core cable nets, including USA Network, Syfy, Bravo and E!”
The Chiller channel originally launched in February of 2007. Although ten years was quite a long run, it’s still sad to see the network go.
Chiller was my introduction to a plethora of horror films and television shows at an extremely young age. It’s where I first watched Tales from the Crypt, the similarly titled Tales from the Darkside and its spin-off Monsters, as well as the legendarily obscure Freddy’s Nightmares. It was a fantastic introduction to an era of televised horror I previously had no idea about.
Unfortunately we seem to be moving into an age where television channels are becoming more and more obsolete, with streaming and video-on-demand services becoming the norm.
Still, there was something fascinating about being a young child and randomly surfing through television channels only to come across such horrifying content. It was almost as powerful as gazing through the horror section at a video store. A truly unique experience that can’t be duplicated with any smartphone or modern video game console.
And because of that I’ll always be thankful for the years I did spend watching Chiller. Rest in Peace Chiller, and thanks for the memories.
How do you feel about the end of the Chiller Network? Let us know in the comments section down below!