Media Daily news has posted a story about the progress of Discovery and Hasbro venture called "The Hub" that gives us some of the real numbers on the new network and their progress since the launch on 10-10-10. According to the article, after four months in operation The Hub is off to a slow start with just 133,000 viewers out of 6 million homes the channel is available in. Hasbro CEO, Brian Goldner, says he is happy with their initial progress, but there are more challenges ahead than meets the eye.

While Hasbro's CEO says he's happy about the progress, there is an extremely long way to go to catch up with Disney's 2.7 million viewers or even Nickelodeon's 1.7 million viewers.

Read further into the article, the only metric The Hub is touting is a so-called "co-viewing metric, where parents and kids watch together." This sounds like they are grasping for straws with a vague statistic like that. Right now, the network relies on syndicated shows rerun on Monday nights including "Family Ties," "The Wonder Years," "Doogie Howser, M.D." and "Happy Days." On Fridays, it offers "Family Game Night."

The real test will be when "Transformers Prime" begins airing this Friday on a regular basis. Surely, a powerful magnet. Recent lackluster sales falling 6% during the holidays suggests the Transformers property may not have the pull it did when the first Paramount movie was released.

It is not just the programming that needs to ramp up on The Hub. They will need to improve advertising sales greatly to cover Hasbro's initial investment of $9.3 million and the on-going operating costs that were cited as a loss on Hasbro's recent earnings reports. Goldner says they have picked up 30 new Advertisers since the launch in October. Many who are new comers to the channel. With a second season of "Transformers Prime" announced, we can see Hasbro is in this for the long haul. Let us hope that the viewers are too.

Source: https://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=144482