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Investigation Discovery began life five years ago this week, after parent Discovery Communications bought out the stake of the then-Discovery Times network that it shared with The New York Times. That network averaged some 80,000 viewers at any point during the day, according to the Nielsen company. Since its relaunch, ID has grown viewers each month to the point where it averaged 669,000 viewers in January, Nielsen said. In 55 million homes five years ago, it will be in 85 million by the end of March. Schleiff, a natural showman who has run Court TV and the Hallmark Channel, was brought in in 2009. The colorful programming gets attention, but there's a serious side on programs like the upcoming "March to Justice" documentary, about the early days of the civil rights movement. With its female, primarily older audience, Investigation Discovery has done a good job reaching a group of people that watches TV heavily, said Brad Adgate, an analyst for Horizon Media. It reaches for reality-based programming the same type of people interested in CBS' prime-time shows, he said. It has the chance to become one of Discovery Communications' most profitable networks, Adgate said. He believes a prediction that the network can be No. 1 in cable over the next few years is too optimistic, though. ID scores high in Nielsen's measurement of "length of viewing," an obscure statistic advertisers love: it means the network's viewers tend to hang around longer than they do at other places. It also indicates the network has an attractive identity in itself, that viewers are tuning in more to ID than to specific shows. "Although we may change the titles every hour, we may have a slight variation ... the one common denominator is they are incredibly riveting," Schleiff said. "They are incredibly compelling. They are incredibly emotionally moving."
[Associated
Press;
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