Lip sync battles spike tv tv#

We intentionally wanted a very diverse cast. Ink Master and Redemption are 50 percent female. Lip Sync Battle is skewing 60 percent female. Nearly a year after Spike’s rebranding, what are your biggest shows with women? Ink Master consistently beats all the female channels and Ink Master: Redemption came out of that. When we greenlit Ink Master - which is going into its seventh season and the sixth was its highest rated - we knew it would skew more female and it worked. Brand perception always lags what the brand is actually doing.

How challenging has it been to get people to think differently about Spike? You can’t do that if your brand in and of itself is saying, “Hey, ladies, not so much we want the young guys.” We knew that would lead to ratings growth. We all looked at each other and said, “Viacom does not in its portfolio have a general entertainment network.” The brands were all very specific, and we knew that was a big opportunity for us. We greenlit a ton of programming designed to attract women to watch with their men folk. When we decided to go from being a young, male network to a broader, general entertainment network. Operating revenue for Spike - now in 91.4 million homes - was $842 million in 2015, according to SNL Kagan. It’s a promising sign that Levy’s bid to be more inclusive is working. Shows such as tattoo competition Ink Master and Bar Rescue helped push ratings up 8 percent in the advertiser-coveted 18-to-49 demographic and an impressive 26 percent among women in the demo. While Spike was no exception to cable’s 2015 ratings woes (off 8 percent in total viewers), the network still sank cash into original programming.

Lip sync battles spike tv tv#

That’s a radical change for a cable channel that once billed itself as “The First Network for Men.” Levy, a former exec at film and TV production company Stone Stanley Entertainment, believes women hold the key to Spike’s growth. The result: 2015 was Spike’s most watched among women in seven years. That’s meant moving away from male-leaning shows (think Cops reruns) to capture a more diverse audience with original shows like Lip Sync Battle and scripted miniseries like Tut. But her greatest mission has been to transform the formerly bro-focused property to a more female-friendly lineup.

She has overseen scripted and nonscripted development at the Viacom-owned channel since joining Spike in 2005. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.įor much of the past year, Sharon Levy, 45, has been leading a radical reinvention of Spike TV. 26 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.