• Mediaweek, Monday, April 27, 2009 9:30 AM

Discovery is pulling the plug on "Real Simple. Real Life," the lifestyle-makeover program it produced with Time Inc.'s Real Simple magazine. The series premiered last October amid heavy promotion by Time Warner Cable, Real Simple and TLC, with Saturn, Kraft and Sears among its sponsors.

The show represented an unusual cross-platform sales effort between the magazine and cable network. The hope was to bring simplicity to harried women's lives in a reality format. But the show averaged only 347,000 total viewers for all 15 episodes.

Maybe the target audience was just too busy. "Friday night is a tough time to gain viewership," says Steve Sachs, Time Inc. executive. "The Real Simple woman has a lot of balls in the air. It's probably not the best time to reach her."

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