Back from the brink of extinction

A couple of years ago, no one in the industry could have predicted films from the natural history genre would make a dent at the box office. But last year's surprise hit was March of the Penguins. This year, An Inconvenient Truth is making headlines, not only for Al Gore's environmental message, but also for the film's impressive ticket sales. Some execs point to the genre's technological advances for the increased audience interest in wildlife and earth sciences, while others claim the stories are more relevant, given recent world events such as deadly tsunamis and hurricanes. Either way, viewers are starting to look to the small screen for nh entertainment, and broadcasters are working to ensure they serve this demo, a different one from the genre's heyday about five years ago.

Brian Leith, former head of Granada Wild and currently a producer at the BBC's NHU, says the diversity of shows is greater now than it has been in the past 15 years. "There's a huge audience and, without a doubt, commissioning has increased in the past year," he says. That diversity can be divided up into four subgenres, according to Brad Dancer, National Geographic Channel's VP of research. "There's 'predatory,' which skews younger - 30-year-old males; 'blue chip,' that's older and more male/female; there's 'kid-friendly;' and then there's the 'wonders of the natural world' audience, who are the same age but very different from wildlife fans."

For most nets, it's the blue-chip viewer that is the most dedicated. Typically over 50 years old, the last of the baby boomers will be entering this demo over the next eight years, making it the fastest growing age group in most territories.

While programming execs can't provide a clear-cut explanation as to why this demo is drawn to nature more than the younger set, a few suggest the dedication may lie in reliable scheduling. In Germany, NDR has achieved the channel's top share - 18% - with its weekly 8:15 p.m., post-news slot. Thirteen/WNET's 'Nature' strand has been broadcast every Sunday at 8 p.m. for the past 25 years in the States, while Austria's 'Universum' on orf hasn't changed its Tuesday 8:15 p.m. slot in 20 years.

orf's Walter Köhler, head of 'Universum,' says viewership for weekly blocks is stable with this older demo, and he wants to keep it that way. "We limit our programming experiments to three or four weeks in a given year. You can try to be different and get a younger audience, but you could lose a lot of the old one," he says. NDR also looked to appeal to a 14- to 49-year-old audience with faster and stylish editing, but decided it was at the risk of losing its core demo. "We have a faithful audience and mainly produce for them, [and] not with MTV-style natural history films," says producer Tom Synnatzschke.

Even though the baby boomer demo is growing, it isn't enough to explain the genre's recent viewership rebound. Younger demos are also being lured into NH's net via event-style, highly visual specials - especially those parents can watch with their kids. Nat Geo, for example, schedules epic specials to reach a wider audience throughout the year to complement its Friday night NH lineup. "It's about creating events, getting the family together. Those kind of event-based ideas tend to get the really big numbers," says Dancer. Relentless Enemies, for example, was broadcast on a Sunday night during the network's 'National Geographic Presents' block, and was viewed by 2.127 million households in the 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. slot.