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here!'s VP of Marketing Dan Gelfand agrees. “You can’t just go after gays who live in L.A. or New York, or just run an ad in one gay publication. We’re running print ads in mainstream publications, like the L.A Times and other local newspapers." Gelfand has also found it much easier to market to gay men because “there are more outlets to reach them—more magazines, more social groups--so we have to do more digging to find ways to reach women.”

Macias believes that here!’s acknowledgement of the diversity of the gay community is critical to its success. “Being aware of the fact that the gay community is not monolithic is part of addressing the problem. You have to be aware of your challenges or they roll over you when you’re not looking.”

So far, Gelfand says he hasn’t encountered any resistance in trying to place advertising for the channel in non-gay publications and television outlets. “I haven’t had a single negative response from non-gay companies about marketing the channel. There’s been a seismic change even in the last few years.”

Getting the mainstream press to cover the channel was a little more difficult at first--it launched a year ago, but it's only recently that most people have learned about it. “In the beginning, it was a struggle,” says Colichman, “but now it’s becoming more routine for the mainstream press to write about us. A lot of them are covering Too Cool for Christmas, for example; it’s being covered along with all the other holiday movies. Just to be treated as an equal is a huge success.”

Gelfand attributes the growing press attention to here! ’s increased investment in developing its own original productions in the last year. “When you’re spending millions of dollars to produce your own content, and hiring a lot of people,” says Gelfand, “it signals a serious investment. So that’s given us a boost in the mainstream press.” Macias sees a similar change. “here! is being covered now like a legitimate business, whereas we weren’t when we were new.”

All agree that a channel like this would not have been possible even a few years ago “for both technological and cultural reasons,” says Colichman, citing the improvements in video-on-demand technology as a key development in making the channel possible.“You have to have distribution to succeed,” explains Gelfand, “and the cable industry—the Comcasts and DirectTVs--wasn’t ready for this a few years ago. I don’t think they understood the viability and power of the gay community, or they were hesitant that there was going to be a backlash. When you see Bravo not only isn't suffering from running Queer Eye, but it's increasing their revenue, they realize the world isn’t going to come to an end. And that’s been a big shift.”

here! is currently in a little over 30 million homes now, and Colichman’s goal is to be in 50 million homes in three years, so it's no surprise that he currently values growth over profitability. “The channel is paying for itself, except that I keep growing it,” he said. “It’s a constant growth and re-marketing process since we’re trying to add so many subscribers.”

Colichman has learned a few things along the way. “Nothing’s easy, and everything that looks easy isn’t,” he says. “Each of us has a chance to define our own life and our own reality, to some extent. Is it growth or struggle? It’s how we frame it. So what I’ve learned is to never define your life as a struggle. Everything that felt like a struggle was your growth; that was your good news. The bad news is if you choose to define your life by its negatives.”

This philosophy feeds Colichman’s vision for the channel, as well. “I’m not defining our community by its struggles. I’m defining it by its celebrations. here! is a celebration of all we’ve accomplished. There’s always more work to be done, but celebrate every day of victory. Any time someone can turn on their TV at home and see themselves portrayed in a relatable way, without advertisers telling us what we should look like, it’s a celebration.”

For more details and subscription information, go to heretv.com