Natural History: Calling viewers back to nature

Like an animal on the prowl, broadcasters wanting to expand their natural history audience are attacking with rejuvenated marketing plans. Relying on the often older, higher income, male-skewed demo currently watching just isn't lucrative enough. Many channels, and even some savvy producers, are competing to get in the faces (and on the screens) of new viewers - and that usually leads them to the younger generation.

As CE Ralf Blasius, who works on ZDF's natural history programs, explains, "Natural history documentaries are an endangered species. It is a very specialized genre that blossomed in the '70s, had its best time in the '80s, and now has a problem because the people that invented it are getting old," he says. "If we want it to survive, we have to find a younger audience - that's one of the biggest tasks we have as natural history commissioning editors or producers."

For National Geographic Channel in the U.S., part of that hurdle is overcome by employing a vast amount of off-channel advertising, says executive VP of marketing and new media Steven Schiffman. For example, as part of Fox cable networks, Nat Geo has spots on about half a dozen Fox-controlled national networks. "We advertise leveraging all media, whether it be television, radio, newspaper or magazine," says Schiffman. "We're a big believer in partaking in all different mediums."

A recent collaboration with book and home entertainment retailer Barnes & Noble gave the brand good exposure. Customers strolling through the store could pick up a free Nat Geo DVD that contains episodes from the popular series Is it Real, Taboo and Explorer. (In turn, the channel promoted Barnes & Noble on air.) "We're always looking at external partnerships like that," says Schiffman, noting that he is currently speaking with several other potential allies.

For the past year, National Geographic Channels International has rolled out the relaunch of its brand with a new graphics package and the tagline 'Think Again.' Senior VP of creative and marketing Guy Slattery explains that ngci has broadened the range of topics it covers in order to appeal to as general a group as possible. "From [the channel's] launch, we've inherited this brand from the magazine, and we definitely appeal to an older demo," says Slattery, noting that the age range varies greatly amongst NGCI's 159 markets. "For the next generation of audience, we also need to be appealing to the [18- to 55-year-old] demo," he says.

This key market is ripe with early adaptors to technologies such as pay TV and mobile phones. With the overwhelming rise of mobile's popularity, NGCI was eager to pair with Terra, a major Internet and phone company in Spain, to promote the In the Womb special, which follows the life of a fetus from conception to birth. Mobile users were able to download clips from the program into their phones, and Web surfers were able to stream five-minute previews of the show onto their computers pre-broadcast. Slattery says there were more than 2.2 million video streams in 10 days. "Internet penetration in Spain on the Terra platform we used reaches more people than our channels - it's a very cost-effective way to reach a wide audience." When Womb broadcast on May 1 in Spain, it came second in ratings in the 10 P.M. slot (after a soccer match), and pushed NGCI's primetime reach from 799,000 in April to 984,000 in the over-18 demo. "We went through the roof in terms of ratings," says Slattery.