• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, April 27, 2010

Nancy Dubuc, the president and general manager of cable TV's History brands, is set to assume the same positions at Lifetime Networks, while continuing in her old roles at the History Channel.

The news comes on the heels of the record success of History's new "America: The Story of Us" miniseries, raising hopes that Dubuc will be able to deliver a similar shot in the arm to Lifetime, which has struggled to reinvent itself in the face of an explosion of media targeting women online.

Dubuc's appointment as president and general manager of Lifetime Networks is effective May 1, according to A&E Television Networks president and CEO Abbe Raven, who praised her "track record of success by focusing on a brand's target audience and creating programming for them."

History and Lifetime are both owned by A&E Television Networks, which is a joint venture of Disney-ABC, NBC Universal, and Hearst.

Dubuc is taking the spot vacated by Andrea Wong in February. As with the History brands, her responsibilities in the new post include strategic planning, programming, consumer marketing, publicity, and brand development.

As the personnel announcement went public, History was also trumpeting the successful debut of "America: The Story of Us," whose first episode drew a record-breaking audience of 5.7 million for the History channel, for a 4.0 Nielsen household rating. The miniseries launched amid a flurry of publicity, at least by History standards, which the channel hopes will sustain it through subsequent episodes.

In addition to "America," Dubuc also had a hand in bringing popular series like "Ice Road Truckers" and "Pawn Stars" to the cable channel.

AETN is hoping Dubuc can bring some of this creative juice to Lifetime. Overall, Lifetime's prime-time audience dipped 6% in the first quarter of 2010, while the History Channel grew 14%. There have been some Lifetime success stories over the last year, but these were somewhat anomalous: "Project Runway" was originally imported from Bravo, and a new companion show, "Models of the Runway," only snagged a relatively modest 1.3 Nielsen household rating in its 2009 debut.