Last year, the History channel had a growth spurt, gaining hundreds of thousands of viewers while most of its competitors struggled to grow at all. This year, even more remarkably, the channel did it again.
That makes the network?s executives a subject of both envy and sympathy in the television business. They swiftly took History from top 20 status on cable to top five, a feat rarely if ever accomplished ? and now they have to keep it there. ?This is going to be a dance with the big boys,? said Nancy Dubuc, the general manager of the channel, in an interview.
The final ratings for 2011 will show that History, a unit of A + E Networks, attracted more middle-aged men than any other cable channel except ESPN. Among all prime-time viewers, History was No. 5 on cable this year, up from No. 8 last year. The four bigger channels are USA, the Disney Channel, TNT and ESPN. Unlike USA and TNT, History has no scripted drama. Unlike ESPN, it has no football or basketball. What History has is reality TV ? and its success also attests to the success of documentary-style dramas and competitions featuring average people.
Its biggest show for the last two years has been Pawn Stars, about a family that buys and sells watches, necklaces and artifacts. Just last week, History scheduled a spinoff, Cajun Pawn Stars. But the channel is also considering shows that may seem suited for TNT or even ESPN, like a Hatfields and McCoys mini-series and a jousting competition. The goal, it seems, is to steal market share from the other big boys.
History has been able to declare its ?best year ever? for five years in a row because it took what could be seen as a radical turn away from its brand nearly five years ago.
Ice Road Truckers, set ratings records for the channel, gave confidence to the History staff and gave a signal to viewers and would-be producers that the channel was changing into something new and more explicitly entertaining. The channel?s slogan became ?History Made Every Day.? For all the jokes about History ignoring the past, it worked. More men turn to the channel for what Dubuc sometimes calls ?their version of romance television,? and more advertisers, too.
History executives contend that the ratings gains are because of not one show but many, including history specials like Gettysburg and Vietnam in HD and reality competition shows like Top Shot. But they acknowledge that they need to breed new hits as Pawn Stars inevitably starts to fade.
To burnish its brand, History also is beginning to finance documentaries, including Page One, an independently made film about The New York Times that will run on the channel next year.
History?s revenues are not disclosed, but to date most of its growth has come from charging more for ads, not from charging more to distributors who carry the channel. That will largely come later, when A&E renegotiates its contracts with distributors. It will aim to have History become a must-have channel, as ESPN has been for years.