• by Wayne Friedman , October 12, 2010

The new Discovery/Hasbro kids' network The Hub had little trouble in grabbing more viewers in its initial ratings debut than its previous incarnation. But as expected, it is well behind the bigger players.  

During its opening Sunday start on Oct. 10, the network pulled in a Nielsen average of 112,000 kids 2-11 viewers and 88,000 kids 6-11 viewers in prime time. (Kids 2-11 and kids 6-11 are the two broad audience metrics that kids marketers closely follow.) These numbers were way up versus the 6,000 kids 2-11 and 3,000 kids 6-11 viewers it registered on the previous Sunday as the Discovery Kids network.

But by way of comparison, The Hub is far behind virtually all bigger kids' network competitors by almost every measure.

Disney Channel, for example, typically averaged 1.4 million kids 2-11 and 1.06 million kids 6-11 for the most recent Monday-to-Sunday prime-time period -- Sept. 27 through Oct. 3. Cartoon Network was next at 686,000 for kids 2-11 and 489,000 for kids 6-11. Nick at Nite is at 579,000 kids 2-11 and 440,000 kids 6-11; Disney XD posts 224,000 kids 2-11 and 165,000 kids 6-11; and Nicktoons is at 170,000 kids 2-11 and 122,000 kids 6-11.

The Hub said it managed to beat out Teen Nick in total day kids 2-11 viewing (72,000 versus 38,000) and total day kids 6-11 viewing (52,000 to 36,000).

The Hub's best-performing show on Sunday, "Family Game Night," an hour-long show, running at 7 p.m. -- pulled in 145,000 kids 2-11 and 116,000 kids 6-11. The network says it outperformed some other networks during this time period -- Nicktoons (which had 95,000 kids 2-11), Teen Nick (22,000 kids 2-11), Disney XD (110,000 kids 6-11), Nicktoons (71,000 kids 6-11) and Teen Nick (21,000 kids 6-11).

Discovery says it also did well in parent-child co-viewing for the night -- which looks at both kids 2-11 and adults 18-49. Thirty-six percent of those kids 2-11 viewers watched with an adult (18-49) -- better than Nickelodeon (20%), Disney Channel (18%) and Cartoon Network (18%).