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[–] 17165301? ago 

https://observer.com/1999/10/meet-emmy-laybourne-daughter-of-cabletv-royalty/

http://archive.ph/ZnUW5

Emmy Laybourne took the stage with her younger brother, Sam. It was a benefit night at the Kitchen for the Center for Discovery, a camp for people with severe disabilities, and the audience wasn’t the usual alternative comedy crowd, but men in suits and women in cocktail dresses. A tape started playing a schmaltzy melody, and Ms. Laybourne, dressed in a sleeveless red top and long black skirt, began to sing lyrics she’d written: “We could walk on sandy beaches,” Emmy began innocently enough. “We could backpack through Europe,” Sam responded.

Soon brother and sister were chiming in on a disturbing chorus: “But we can’t make love–because we are related! It’s taboo for me and you!” They danced lasciviously with each other, then backed off guiltily.

In the audience were the Laybournes’ mother and father–Geraldine Laybourne, the former head of Nickelodeon and now potentate of the new women’s cable and Internet channel, Oxygen, and Kit Laybourne, the former head of the Colossal Pictures animation studio who is now developing programming for Oxygen.

The little duet kept going: “I used to watch you sleeping when you were a little child,” sang Emmy. “And I thought to myself as I saw you, so weak, so defenseless–man, it would be wild!” To which Sam replied: “I used to watch you bathing when you went through puberty. And I thought to myself as I saw you emerge from the water–why can’t she be with me?”

At the end of the number, the Laybourne parents applauded loudly for Emmy’s paean to incest. What parent wouldn’t be proud?

“She was born creative,” Geraldine Laybourne said after the show. “She really didn’t have a choice. This poor kid was tortured. She and Sam used to say, ‘Please, Mom, no more TV!'”

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[–] 17165302? ago 

She rearranged Nickelodeon with the force of a tornado, starting as a consultant at the network launch in 1979. After getting a master's degree in elementary education at the University of Philadelphia, she formed an independent production studio and, with her husband, Kit, an independent filmmaker, was creating pilots for the network. The following year, Laybourne joined as a programming manager and was elevated to general manager in 1986. At the time, Nickelodeon was losing $10 million a year as a commercial-free channel with the lowest ratings in cable. It was the "spinach channel," bitter tasting–but good for kids.

Guided by rigorous focus groups with children, Laybourne honed a philosophy for the network based on the mind-set that growing up is tough. But the network had little money for developing programs to help kids cope, so Laybourne bought cheap old shows and packaged them to look cool. She started accepting advertising and retooling the economics of production to make originals affordable. Game shows came first, with "Double Dare" debuting in 1986, shattering the myth that kids would only watch nimation. She produced the show with neighborhood kids in the basement of her New Jersey home.

http://articles.latimes.com/1996-09-08/magazine/tm-41780_1_disney-channel/4

http://archive.ph/wjSri

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[–] 17177642? ago 

the basement

Oh dear…