You’re flipping channels and you come across this programming line-up: Wives with Knives, Homicide Hunter, Nightmare Next Door or Happily Never After.

Naturally you’re hooked.​

Where are you? Investigation Discovery, TV’s stickiest network.

The network is number-one among all broadcast and cable networks in keeping viewers tuned in all day, with an average of 50 minutes among all adults 25-54 and women 25-54, reports AdWeek.

Those numbers double the average of 24 minutes among adults 25-54 and 27 minutes for women in that age group. They also far outpace the network’s closest competitive, Disney Junior, which averages 40 minutes for adults 25-54 and 43 minutes for women 25-54, and let’s admit that some of those viewers are probably just too tired juggling kids and full-time-plus jobs to change the channel.

According to Henry Schleiff, who oversees ID as well as Military Channel and Destination America, the network has five keys to success.

1) Grab viewers in the first five minutes.

“One of the things that all of our incredible production and editors look at, especially our senior executives, is that first five minutes,” Schleiff told the magazine. “In this world, there is such competition for your viewership and you’re so quick to move that one of our keys to success is grabbing you in that first five minutes. The middle is always easy, because there’s just a ton of different stuff going on—and then you want to stay till the end.”

2) Pay them off at the end. Reward them over and over for figuring out whodunit.

“Anybody who says, ‘You know, I think I realize who did it. I think I see the red herring. I think I see the evidence and how they’re going to connect,’ they want to stay tuned for the payoff,” said Schleiff.

3) Repeat.

If this formula works once, it will keep working.

4) Seal the deal with a memorable series title.

See above. Can anyone beat Wives with Knives? Point made.

5) Keep the channel’s tone consistent.

Marketers pay attention: One of the key’s to ID’s success — it’s also been one of cable’s fastest-growing networks for the past few years — is making sure viewers know what they are going to get.

ID’s viewers say “I know if I go to ID at 9, I’m going to get a story with certain beats to it, certain elements to it. I know I’m going to be amazed; I know I’m going to be interested,” said Schleiff. “And you get that, and that consistency of brand is really serving us well.”

Read More: Adweek

Brief Take: A big part of ID’s success is its dedicate to true crime, a genre that fans can never seem to get enough of.

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