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Hub easily tops Discovery Kids numbers but has long climb ahead

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The Hub, a new kids cable television channel co-owned by cable programmer Discovery Communications and toy giant Hasbro Inc., launched on Sunday and easily improved on the numbers that Discovery Kids was delivering.

Of course, that wasn’t really much of a challenge. Discovery Kids ratings were so small the company never released them to the public.

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In its first day, Hub averaged 59,000 viewers in the 6-11 demographic it is targeting. While Discovery Kids averaged 11,000 in that category the previous week, the Hub has a long way to go before its rivals have anything to worry about. According to Nielsen, Walt Disney Co.’s Disney Channel averaged more than 900,000 viewers age 6-11 while Viacom Inc.’s Nickelodeon had 865,000 and Time Warner Inc.’s Cartoon Network had 509,000. Smaller kids channels Disney XD, which targets boys, averaged 109,000 kids 6-11 while Nicktoons had 112,000 viewers that age.

The Hub’s brightest spot was its ‘Family Game Night,’ an hour-long game show that averaged 116,000 viewers age 6-11 and 267,000 viewers overall. The show managed to beat Nicktoons, Teen Nick and Disney XD.

Given that Discovery Kids was barely a blip, it is no surprise that the Hub, which had a huge promotional push behind its launch Sunday, was easily able to improve the numbers. However, its ‘Family Game Night’ had an impressive showing and the ratings overall were not horrible for day one given how much of a head start its much bigger rivals have. Discovery and Hasbro have the deep pockets to make inroads, but it is not going to happen overnight.

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-- Joe Flint

Related:

Discovery and Hasbro not toying around with the Hub

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