The History Channel is having a remarkably strong summer, with an average of nearly 1.6 million viewers a night in June and July, up from 1.2 million in the same months last year. It is using
established hits like "Pawn Stars" to breed new ones like "Top Shot," a firearms reality competition. Ad-supported cable channels are averaging the same number of viewers as they did last summer, with
no gains to crow about.
But when the 10 biggest entertainment channels are singled out -- USA, TNT, Fox News, Nick at Nite, History, TBS, A&E, Discovery, ESPN and ABC Family -- they
show a collective uptick of 5% compared with last summer, suggesting that there is a bit of consolidation going on. The 10 top cablers draw almost a third of all the viewers for the 90 ad-supported
cable channels that are measured by Nielsen. Those channels also churn out most of TV's summer hits.
advertisement
advertisement
Read the whole story at The New York Times »