US cable market facts

Facts and figures on the US cable market including share of viewers and British shows 'doing the business'.

Viewing shares 2007

Channel	Average Audience
USA	1.8 %
Disney	1.7%
TNT	1.4%
Fox News	1.1%
TBS	1.1%

Source: Nielsen Media Research (1 Jan-11 Mar 2007)

 

Cable price paid for UK progs (straight acquisitions)

Genre	Prices paid
Drama	£2,500-£30,000
Kids	£2,500-£10,000 per half hour
Entertaintment	£2,500-£25,000 per hour
Factual	£7,500-£50,000 per hour

 (Does not include prices paid for co-productions)

UK shows doing the business 

1 What Not to Wear (TLC)  1.481m
2 Rome (HBO)  1.366m
3 Supernanny Marathon (ABC Family) 1.252m

By far the most successful British format of recent years has been TLC’s Trading Spaces, based on Endemol’s Changing Rooms, which peaked at 3.1 million viewers in the 2002/03 season. However, its ratings have since slumped and the show averaged 944,000 viewers for its sixth season. These days, What Not to Wear is TLC’s top-rated UK format.