• by David Goetzl , March 9, 2010

As channel space with series such as "Sex Decoy: Love Stings" and "Smile...You're Under Arrest!" is overtaken by the National Geographic brand, executives are pitching the programming as a less wild place for advertisers.

There's a "shortage of quality places to go," said Rich Goldfarb, who heads sales for Nat Geo Wild. The network is launching March 29 in Fox Reality Channel's slot.

The network, which targets adults 25 to 54, was announced in October and will participate in its first upfront this summer. Executives have been selling it in the scatter market since January, and Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg and Geico have signed on. (There have been some calendar upfront deals as well.)

Nat Geo Wild partly looks to focus more on lions, tigers and bears than its sister National Geographic Channel (NGC), where programming can fit into an access genre that also looks inside supermax prisons and U.S. border patrol operations.

"A contemporary extension of the brand" is how Goldfarb described NGC, which launched in 2001 and is in 70 million-plus homes.

That's not to say NGC has moved completely away from some of National Geographic's wildlife-programming heritage. It has a forthcoming "Inside the Giraffe" special.

But News Corp. executives felt there may be an opportunity with Nat Geo Wild (NGW) to capitalize on people's fascination with the animal kingdom. Also, NGW has gained traction internationally since its 2006 launch. And programming could be tailor made for high-definition viewing, which is only on the rise.

The network will try to maintain as much of Fox Reality's reach of 50 million homes as it can through negotiations with affiliates. Like NGC, it is operated by and two-thirds owned by News Corp., while the commercial arm of the National Geographic Society owns the rest.

Nat Geo Wild has nine original series in production and can call on library content owned by the National Geographic Society, much of which has run on PBS for decades.

NGW carries a global "Get Closer" tagline. Although it will offer specials tracking tigers in the Himalayas and show how 150 elephants are moved 500 miles, much of its programming will have an animal focus with a human protagonist.

"The Lion Ranger" is a series about a behaviorist living with creatures in South Africa. "Wild Nights with Mireya Mayor" has a team chasing wildlife at night in urban areas. And "Strike Force" is about a group called in for emergencies, such as shark infestations and jellyfish swarms in tourist areas.

NGW would seem to compete with an amalgam of the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, although executives said it has its own approach. And, in any case, there is ample room for more in the wildlife genre.

On one level, News Corp. spinning off Nat Geo Wild from NGC is similar to what Scripps is doing with Food Network as it launches the complementary Cooking Channel to replace the Fine Living Network.

To persuade multichannel operators to make the switch on the dial, it has said it will pay a fee, which could add up to about a $1 per subscriber over time. News Corp. may have to take a similar tack to insert NGW in Fox Reality's home.

Steve Schiffman, general manger for NGC and Nat Geo Wild, said that one advantage of the new network comes in attracting top producers, since it can offer them easy wide reach by running their shows on NGW outlets globally.

"One of the great things about natural history content is the animals don't have any agents," he said.