There's been a lot of campfire talk recently about the "cable-pocalypse" that's raging through the TV landscape. Those flames have been fanned by a steady drumbeat of headlines spotlighting the billion-dollar write-downs, multiple rounds of layoffs, and declining ad revenue plaguing the cable industry.

But just like John Wayne coming to the aid of an out-of-control stagecoach, the head of the Western-themed INSP network is here to say, "Whoa there, pardner."

At a time when other cable outlets are struggling to hold on to viewers, INSP has lassoed a herd of fans who show up for its lineup of classic cowboy fare from the genre's golden age, as well as a smattering of modern-day originals.

Thanks to that core audience, the channel is a regular fixture in the top 10 cable outlets among total viewers, often finishing ahead of more high-profile, written-about destinations like Bravo, FX, and Food Network.

Despite having the data to claim bragging rights, network chief operating officer Dale Ardizzone doesn't want to come across as being too big for his britches.

"Cable TV is a business that constantly reinvents itself," the head of INSP tells ADWEEK while contemplating what he describes as the "period of challenge" facing his much-scrutinized slice of the TV industry. "But we've found that there's still an incredible base of consumers who like to have a network program for them -- and that's very relaxing."

In the beginning, there was PTL Television Network, the small-screen home of televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. Launched in the mid-1970s, the cable channel's fortunes steadily grew with the political and financial rise of the religious right.

But then the Bakkers' very public downfall took their creation down, as well. After entering bankruptcy court in 1990, the outlet -- by then known as The Inspirational Network -- was acquired by evangelist Morris Cerullo, whose son, David, was named CEO.

Ardizzone, who joined the network in 2001, is careful to distinguish INSP's faith-based past from its Western present, emphasizing that it no longer has any connection to PTL, which Bakker relaunched in 2015. He also notes that the cable network currently exists as a separate subsidiary of the Cerullo family's nonprofit ministry.

For the record, INSP's roots are still visible during the early morning hours, when its airtime is given over to religious programs. "That is not INSP's programming. It's a separate entity," Ardizzone stresses.

The network's transformation started in 2010 when it rebranded itself as INSP and moved away from ministry programming toward an advertising-supported cable model. As the reliance on faith-based fare decreased, it fell to programming czar Doug Butts to determine the channel's new identity. "We decided internally that we wanted to be a family-centric network," recalls Butts, whose tenure stretches back to 1994.

That strategy initially meant licensing libraries of vintage family shows like The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie. But INSP was far from the only place on the cable frontier to watch that content.

"I quickly saw that we were competing with Hallmark Channel and MeTV," Butts admits. "I had to ask myself, 'How can we be distinctive?'"

The answer lay in cornering the market on a dusty genre that other channels -- not to mention mainstream audiences -- were largely ignoring. With Yellowstone still a gleam in Taylor Sheridan's eye in the mid-2010s, Westerns had little to no presence on cable television, which also meant that there was little to no competition for those eyeballs.

Following that lightbulb moment, Butts carved out room in the network's Saturday and Sunday schedules for some "trial and error" beta-testing.

"We called them 'Saddle Up Weekends' and noticed that it was bringing in an underserved audience," he says now. "That opened a big door for us."

It wasn't long before INSP began saddling up on weekdays, as well as weekends. By 2020, the network officially made the Western rebrand part of its mission statement, and it added a jaunty cowboy hat to its logo two years later for extra emphasis.

Over the years, Butts has learned how to cater the network's programming to the kinds of Westerns its audience wants to see, noting that viewership is consistently strongest for the shows and movies where "good-looking cowboys shoot up the bad guys." In other words, forget about revisionist yarns like The Wild Bunch and McCabe & Mrs. Miller -- give 'em Gunsmoke and Rio Lobo.

"They want to see the Jimmy Stewarts and the Audie Murphys," Butts says of the typical INSP viewer, who he and Ardizzone agree is likely to be in the 50-plus age bracket. "They also don't care if the programs are in black-and-white. They love the classics, and they don't want you to do anything to them."

Those tastes have also dictated the network's forays into original programming, with straightforward lawmen vs. outlaw fare consistently outperforming other kinds of shows. For example, a reality series called The Cowboy Way didn't garner much of a fanbase despite being given seven seasons to catch on.

"The reality format doesn't tell stories in the way our viewers want them to be told," Butts says of that since-canceled experiment.

The network has had more success with Wild West Chronicles, which brings Old West legends to life via dramatic re-creations. More recently, INSP launched scripted shows Elkhorn, about the exploits of young Teddy Roosevelt long before his presidency, and Blue Ridge: The Series, starring Johnathan Schaech as a modern-day sheriff who keeps his small town safe from various miscreants.

"We don't have huge budgets for originals, and the audience reacts to them differently than the classics," Butts admits. "But we think the quality is there. And a lot of Hollywood actors love to be cowboys!"

So far, INSP has avoided the brunt of the cable-pocalypse fallout by appealing to a demographic that has little desire to take a pair of scissors to their cords. "We have cord cuddlers, not cord cutters," Ardizzone jokes affectionately. "Our viewers tend to be very passionate about their cable."

But he's also well aware that this approach can't endure forever. Besides the aging audience, INSP is also subject to the whims of the cable carriage business. Last September, for example, Xfinity announced that it was moving the network to a separate $10-per-month package, inspiring a wave of angry reactions.

Taking a page from other networks, INSP began testing the streaming TV waters in 2022 by launching its first FAST (free ad-supported television) channel, The Cowboy Way, which recently rebranded itself as Western Bound. That's one part of Ardizzone's ongoing effort to reach younger viewers who he claims have shown an interest in the "Western lifestyle."

We have cord cuddlers, not cord cutters.

"A younger generation is seeing some of our classic content and [recognizing] that the storytelling from 40 or 50 years ago is still incredible," he adds. "The Western theme is solid -- we just have to go where the audience is migrating for consumption."

And that younger generation definitely isn't on cable; according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data for the week of Sept. 9, INSP's numbers in the adults 25-through-54 demographic were 21,000 primetime viewers and 16,000 viewers across total day.

Given the age bracket of the demo regularly tuning into INSP, it shouldn't be a surprise that the network's roster of regular advertisers includes insurance and lifestyle products aimed at the 50-and-over crowd. Because that audience also consists of highly motivated voters, Ardizzone says that the concentration of political ads frequently grows during election years.

"One of the things our advertisers love is that we have a concentration of audience in the 50-plus demo," he notes. "We enjoy great success with advertisers looking to focus on that age level."

Ardizzone acknowledges that in uncertain TV times like these, it can be easier to exist outside of a giant media conglomerate than inside of one -- particularly when you can stand tall on your own brand. While he insists that he takes "no joy" in seeing bigger companies like Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global struggle, his main advice to other cable networks can be distilled to three words: Know thyself, hoss.

"When you veer too far away from what you are, you get in trouble," Ardizzone says. "Part of our success was finding out who we were -- and sticking to it."