U.S. Cable Networks: Which Ones Commission Factual? How Many Homes Do They Reach?

The ‘Scale Thing’

This chart is intended as a handy guide to the household reach of U.S. cable/satellite-delivered networks, courtesy of Nielsen (June 2010).

We added the programming category, and a checkmark to indicate if a channel has an appetite for commissioning factual programs.

We will further qualify this data in the coming months, for example by indicating the scale of hours commissioned, relative total spending on unscripted content, average budgets, a quality metric (e.g. receives award nominations), and so on.

The links connect to our earlier coverage of a network’s commissioning processes.

• We are preparing reports on many other channels that commission factual programs.

Channels not covered by the Nielsen report include: 

• LinkTV (32 million satellite homes and ‘program blocks shown regularly on 15 million cable homes’)  
• The Documentary Channel (25 million)
• Smithsonian Channel
• Ovation TV (42 million)

HBO and Showtime are “premium” channels, explaining why they are the least widely- distributed channels shown on the list.

• HBO is a powerhouse in the U.S documentary universe
• Showtime also acquires and commissions docs

Don’t forget the regional and college sports networks that commission archive-based series as well as doc features, for example:

• Big Ten Network (75+million, U.S. & Canada)

Please email us if you spot any errors or omissions.