U.S. Factual Networks: Who's Hot? Who's Not!

How are they doing?

We invited John Morse, president of the research firm Byron Media to help us assemble a snapshot of how the top U.S. factual channels have gained or lost prime time audience this year.

Our list is not apples-to-apples:

It includes channels that are dedicated to Docs and Unscripted, for example Nat Geo and Discovery
And others that schedule a mix of Docs and Reality with Scripted (e.g., A&E and MTV)
Many channels that schedule Factual are unrated, or were not rated in ‘09

Quantity Not Quality

Most ad-supported channels sell media based on their target demos.
However the ‘average prime time’ is a very helpful measure of scale and performance
Read DocumentaryTelevision.com’s network profiles and analysis of channel schedules for more details about 20+ of these channels (and several others), their target demos, and their budget ‘sweet spots’.

Average Quarterly Primetime Viewing / 3Q’10 versus 3Q’09


	*3Q’10*	*3Q’09*	*Change*	*Percent*
INVEST. DISCOVERY	304	184	120	65.2%
DISC SCIENCE	201	132	69	52.3%
MTV	952	661	291	44.0%
HISTORY	1,291	936	355	37.9%
E!	589	487	102	20.9%
BIO	165	140	25	17.9%
BRAVO	751	668	83	12.4%
HISTORY INTL	166	152	14	9.2%
MILITARY	121	111	10	9.0%
TRAVEL	399	370	29	7.8%
A&E	1,172	1,087	85	7.8%
DISCOVERY	956	887	69	7.8%
OXYGEN	384	357	27	7.6%
TRU TV	838	789	49	6.2%
BET	562	534	28	5.2%
ANIMAL PLANET	431	414	17	4.1%
TLC	864	850	14	1.6%
FOOD	905	911	-6	-0.7%
HGTV	1,055	1,093	-38	-3.5%
SYFY	950	1,001	-51	-5.1%
NAT GEO CH	318	344	-26	-7.6%
WETV	235	269	-34	-12.6%
STYLE	122	140	-18	-12.9%
SPIKE	632	728	-96	-13.2%
VH1	348	532	-184	-34.6%
Factual Networks	14,711	13,777	934	6.8%

Nielsen Media Research, 3Q 2009 and 2010

Highlights

Largest audience (‘000)
- History (1,291), A&E (1,172), HGTV (1,055), Discovery (956) and MTV (661)
Fastest growing channels (percent)
- ID: Investigation Discovery (65.2), Discovery Science (52.3), MTV (44.0), History (37.9) and E! (20.9)
- VH1 is in the basement (-34.6)

The Factual Bucket: 14.7 million and Growing!

DocumentaryTelevision.com’s bucket of 25 Basic channels attracted 14.7 million average prime time viewers in 3Q’10
That’s a year-to-year increase of 6.8% for the Factual genre

Some surprising data:

The PBS audience grew 15.4% to 1,485,000
HBO is a pay TV channel and the home of irregularly-scheduled premium docs
- HBO’s prime time audience dropped more than 10%
- But HBO’s documentary unit measures its performance by Oscar nominations and sizzle versus ratings

Takeaways

It’s been a while since History moved away from prime time ‘history’ towards character-based series like Ice Road Truckers

History remains the #1 rated Factual network, and with a gain of 355,000 prime time viewers!

A single series – Jersey Shore – drove MTV’s dramatic turnaround!

Discovery’s investment in its digital channels is paying off

ID jumped into the evergreen Crime niche that was abandoned by Turner’s truTV (formerly Crime)
ID is the hottest channel in the business. There’s a way to go, but could Discovery’s Big Four become the Big Five?
Meanwhile truTV performed below the average growth rate for our bucket of channels
Science comes in at #2 on our growth chart, although from the audience base of a small digi-net

The Discovery Channel came back this year

But Discovery is a flagship channel that navigates a tricky course:
It must sustain a great, quality brand at a time when viewers enjoy lots of attractive options at the low end of the quality scale

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OWN: Breaking News

Discovery Health becomes OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network on January 1