Warner Bros. Discovery’s U.S. Networks Group  will be reorganized under Kathleen Finch, chairman and chief content officer, with long-time Discovery executive Nancy Daniels adding responsibility for TBS, TNT and truTV.

Those former Turner networks had been overseen by Brett Weitz, who is leaving WBD, the company confirmed.

Also leaving is Tom Ascheim, who oversaw WarnerMedia's Kids and Young Adults business. 

That business is being split into three sections, with Adult Swim president Michael Ouweleen adding Cartoon Network and Boomerang to his portfolio. Pola Changnon, who is general manager of Turner Classic Movies and had been reporting to Ascheim, now reports to Finch. The Warner Bros. Animation/CN Studios Group, which also reported to Ascheim, will be headed by Sam Register and become part of the Warner Bros. TV Studios group under Channing Dungey.

Finch is also centralizing the group’s marketing, communications/public relations and content strategy/scheduling operations. Previously individual network groups had their own operations handling those functions.

Finch told staffers in a memo that in addition to creating a less layered organization, WBD’s networks will benefit from a more collaborative and strategic approach to how it schedules and markets its content.

“With so many top networks in our portfolio, we have the ability to synchronize programming schedules across multiple brands and then market those networks in an advantageous way, strategically moving audiences from one tentpole to another — and from one network to another — in a seamless, coordinated fashion,” Finch said.

The centralized units will be headed by Audrey Adlam, group senior VP, communications & public relations, U.S. Networks; Karen Bronzom, chief marketing officer, U.S. Networks; and Julie Taylor, chief of content strategy & insights, U.S. Networks.

All three report to Finch.

Johanna Fuentes, who was head of global communications for WarnerMedia’s studio and networks, also left the company.

Under the new content lineup, all of the brand leaders also will report directly to Finch.

The new brand leader lineup includes:

• Daniels, who now oversees Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Science, TBS, TNT & truTV; 
• Jane Latman, in charge of HGTV, Food Network & Cooking Channel; 
• Howard Lee at TLC & Travel Channel; 
• Ouweleen, running Adult Swim, Cartoon Network & Boomerang; 
• Tina Perry, head of OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network; and
• Jason Sarlanis, heading ID & Investigative Content.

The flattened organization will also include reductions in head counts. Warner Bros. Discovery has promised Wall Street $3 billion in cost savings. ■

Survivor. Big Brother. The Amazing Race. 90-Day Fiancé. Dr. Pimple Popper. I Am Jazz. Sister Wives. Serengheti. Gold Rush. Naked and Afraid. These shows and many, many more have come to life under the purview of Nancy Daniels, chief brand officer of Discovery & Factual.

“She’s the person you want to be in a foxhole with,” Discovery president and CEO David Zaslav said. “She is fearless and formidable: You can’t knock her down. She’s been able to do something very few people have been able to do — build a top network for women with TLC and then turn around and build a top cable network for men.”

Said Daniels: “Moving from TLC to Discovery is a mind shift, but it was something familiar to me — the programming is familiar to me and the audience is familiar to me. I look at it as good storytelling and good content.”

While Daniels’s title of chief brand officer is a bit of a misnomer because she’s in fact in charge of three cable networks — Discovery Channel, Science Channel and Animal Planet — she’s very much aware of how significant a strong brand is in the era of streaming TV.

Knows Brands’ Value

“She starts with what the brand is when it’s at its best,” Zaslav said. “She’s very big on doing the deep audience dive: What do viewers like about the network right now, what do they love on the network, what do they love on TV in general and what would they like more of? Then she starts thinking about how to program and schedule that.”

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Even before that deep dive, Daniels knew well what she had with the gilded Discovery brand: “Any time someone says something like, ‘oh, it’s so hard to find shows and get a hit,’ or ‘we work in cable and it’s so hard’ — I say ‘we work on one of the most beloved and respected media brands there is; it is so meaningful to people.’ Do you know how hard that is to build? … Having something that already is so meaningful to people, we are so lucky.”

By leaning into the strength of that brand, Daniels has maintained Discovery’s standing as the top basic-cable network in primetime, excluding sports, among men 25-54. It also boasts the top unscripted cable series among men 25-54 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and has more top-10 unscripted cable series than any other network in both 2018 and 2019 among both men 25-54 and men 18-49.

In her first full year at Science Channel, it tied its highest-rated year ever among people 25-54 in prime and total day. It also had its highest-rated year ever among women 25-54 in prime and total day, growing 7% and 11% from last year, respectively.

That performance is something she replicated at TLC. In Daniels’s first year overseeing the network, it jumped from seventh to sixth among women 25-54 and from ninth to sixth among women 18-49 among all basic cable networks. In her last two years at the helm, it improved 12% and 14%, respectively.

Daniels accomplished that growth with programs such as the popular 90-Day Fiancé franchise and exciting live events, such as Expedition Unknown: Egypt Live, which made headlines when explorers uncovered a 2,500-year-old mummy live on television.

“I’m really proud of the turnaround at TLC,” Daniels said. “I was there for four and a half years, which is a long time for a network president, and we had a couple of really low years. And then we turned it around and right now, TLC is killing it.”

Like most successful leaders, Daniels attributes much of the success to her team: “It takes a long time to find the right people you click with.”

Some of the people Daniels clicked with she met early on and still remains close to, such as Allison Grodner, founder of Fly on the Wall Productions, which still produces Big Brother for CBS and many other unscripted series. Daniels worked with Grodner early in her career, and when CBS came looking for a network executive, Grodner was quick to recommend Daniels, who was hired as VP of alternative series development.

“Nancy knew story, she was creative and she understood developing a show,” said Grodner, who still works on projects such as TLC’s This Is Life Live with Daniels . “I also knew she would be able to bridge that gap. She’s thoughtful and smart in her responses to things. She absolutely has the temperament to navigate the corporate world.”

Aced the Interview

When Jennifer Davidson and Tara Sandler of Pie Town Productions met Daniels in 1994, Sandler knew she wanted to hire her on the spot. After the interview, Sandler leaned out of her office window and called Daniels right back in to say “you’re hired!”

“Nancy did the cutest thing — she jumped up in the air and clicked her heels,” she said. “She started out as a second producer and ended up running a show or two. She was a baby genius.”

Pie Town was significant for Daniels in more ways than one: She met her husband, Mark, a director of photography, there, and the couple has two children: Sam, 17, and Leo, 12.

Looking ahead, Daniels conceded: “It’s a super-challenging time in media in general, let alone cable, as we’re trying to figure out the future. There’s an entire generation of people who didn’t interact with Discovery Channel as we did growing up. How do we make Discovery relevant to another generation so that will live far beyond [being] a cable channel?

“The future is barrelling at you — you can’t run from it,” she said. “You have to be ready for it and do everything you can to get these networks ready for it.”

Career Highlights: Building TLC into a top-10 cable network for women. In 2019, TLC was one of the few basic cable networks to show growth and in 2019, its popular franchise 90-Day Fiancé led the network to its best July performance ever among persons 25-54 and all key female demographics.

Quotable: “The future is barrelling at you. You can’t run from it; you have to be ready for it and do everything you can to get these networks ready for it.”

In New York’s Times Square last month, WE tv drummed up support for the March 2 launch of a series by opening a pop-up “Museum of Natural Hysteria,” replete with a scream booth, a Rage-O-Meter Punching Bag, cranial massage chairs and a rogues’ photo gallery of viral brides to be, including an infamous one in 2012 who was left at the altar. (Google it.)

Few shows might be deemed worthy of such an oversized promotional presentation, but the cable network deemed the return of its series Bridezillasafter a five-year hiatus to be one of them. The AMC Networks outlet is resurrecting the reality show for fans who want to watch, again, as women lose their grip prior to their nuptials, as well as a new generation that wants to know what the fuss was about.

WE tv is one of several cable channels resurrecting TV franchises previously thought buried in the graveyard of cancelled shows. While the broadcast networks are generating headlines with reboots of such classic shows as Roseanne, Murphy Brown and Get Christie Love!, cable networks are also looking to mine ratings gold by resurrecting nostalgic programming.

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Heading Back to the Beach
Networks say bringing back popular series, from TLC’s Trading Spaces to MTV’s Jersey Shore, which comes back in April with the original cast, including JWOWW, Snooki and The Situation, in Jersey Shore Family Vacation — already green-lit by MTV for a second season — generates instant viewer recognition in a crowded and noisy environment.

“There’s so much television these days, and so much entertainment for people — you have to find a way to hook them quickly — and I think there’s a built-in interest and excitement around a [rebooted] series that provides a different way to tap that existing passion,” said Tom Ascheim, president of Freeform, which will reboot the 1990s Fox series Party of Five. “We definitely hope it makes it easier to promote and taps into an existing fan base, as well as attract people who haven’t spent so much time with the show or vaguely heard of it and want to see the new one.”

While TV programmers have long sought to relive the glory of classic shows through remakes and movie takeoffs, the trend has exploded over the past year as networks look to offer content with built-in audiences to counteract a Peak TV dynamic that featured more than 450 scripted television shows in 2017 and is expected to grow this year.

More than a dozen shows from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s are scheduled to return to the air in 2018. Some will be completely new versions of the original, others will feature the shows’ original casts. They come in a variety of genres, including comedy (CBS’s Murphy Brown), drama (CBS’s Magnum P.I.), and unscripted fare (History’s In Search of …).

Even streaming services that haven’t been around very long are tapping into the past with reboots of classic shows like The Twilight Zone (CBS All Access), Lost in Spaceand Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (Netflix).

WE tv executive vice president of development and original programming Lauren Gellert said social media has changed the dynamics of preparing for a wedding day, which has allowed the network to bring back popular series Bridezillas.

After a 10-season run, the series was benched, replaced in the lineup by Marriage Boot Camp.

With social sites such as Pinterest and Facebook becoming major platforms for brides to shop and showcase themselves, Gellert said the network saw an opportunity to reboot the franchise for a new generation.

“Bridezillas was obviously a fan favorite when we rested the show, but it certainly didn’t leave the zeitgeist and pop-culture lexicon of words often used in the press and by celebrities,” she said. “We thought it was a good time for a little nostalgia and to tap into some of our roots.”

Gellert said the show will draw former Bridezillas fans as well as social media-savvy millennials looking to connect with the franchise.

“There’s a new ‘better find me my selfie stick’ kind of bridezilla out there that thinks everything should just be fine if she orders flowers she saw on Pinterest,” Gellert said.

TLC will also look to shake the dust off of one of its most popular series, Trading Spaces, which returns with new episodes on April 7 after being off the air for a decade. The series, arguably the granddaddy of the home-renovation genre, premiered in 2000, but new episodes for the show have not aired since 2008.

TLC president Nancy Daniels, upped last week to chief brand officer, Discovery & Factual, at Discovery Communications, told TV critics in January that the series, which will bring back many of the show’s stars (including host Paige Davis) was a cornerstone show for TLC that fans had for years inquired about returning.

“From the moment we announced it, we knew it was the right time,” Daniels said during the Television Critics Association tour. “Just the interest, the excitement and the people coming out of the woodwork to tell you their favorite episodes and favorite stories … I’m thrilled and excited, and I just feel like it is the right time.”

Davis said the Trading Spaces brand remains popular with viewers despite the proliferation of home improvement shows that have aired since the series left the air. She added that the return of the show’s original crew as well as the addition of several new professionals will help the show’s appeal beyond its fan base.

“Trading Spaces will offer viewers the same thing it offered when it first came into the landscape — creativity, resourcefulness and approachability — and we created a catalyst for a new genre of television,” she said. “I’m not concerned that Trading Spaces will not break through the clutter; one of the benefits of all of that stuff being out there is that our viewing audience is much more educated, and they’ll appreciate what we have always offered.”

Reviving a popular show with its original cast isn’t a guarantee of ratings success. For reboots to work, the show has to remind people of the past but reflect today’s society and culture, Freeform’s Ascheim said. The Walt Disney Co.-owned network’s reboot of Party of Five, in which five brothers and sisters are forced to raise themselves after their parents die, changes the dynamics of the original by following the lives of five siblings after their parents are deported.

“The basic construct is the same, but this time updated to reflect the culture in which we live now,” Ascheim said. “It feels like it’s up to this moment in our world when it launches.”

Familiarity Breeds Success
The show’s familiarity, coupled with its ability to address some of today’s societal issues, could be a recipe for attracting young viewers who may or may not have streamed episodes from the original series on Hulu.

“Just in the same way that we often base a television series on a movie, book or some other pre-existing or intellectual property that people already have a relationship with, taking a familiar series makes viewers more likely to pay attention on the way toward making the show,” Ascheim said. “And then once it’s made they create a disposition and affection for it.”

WE tv’s Gellert said reboots appeal to viewers exhausted by the constant drumbeat of controversy and drama in the current breaking-news cycle and want comfort television, something safe and familiar. “I think there’s some innate goodness in Bridezillas, because there’s a lot of humor and it really is an over-the-top reaction to what is the biggest day of many of these women’s lives,” she said. “We see a wedding at the end and we feel good about that. We laughed with her — we thought she was insane — and yet we see that he is really marrying her, and how happy this crazy bride is. There’s humor, a lot of lightness and a celebratory moment, and I do think we need that in today’s fast-paced media environment.”

Ascheim doesn’t believe the reboot phenomena is in danger of running out of steam in the near future, adding that these reimagined shows can thrive side by side with the plethora of new, original scripted and reality shows.

“I don’t think we’re in danger of going overboard yet,” he said.

This is being called the golden age of TV programming for scripted shows, in particular.

More shows than ever are being produced, viewers are binge watching them hours at a time through video on demand and streaming services like Hulu and Netflix. And media companies are making piles of cash licensing shows to streaming services, or using them to build their own subscription businesses.

Nonfiction programming has always been a bit of a stepchild in the programming world. People watch, sure. But even the best reality doesn’t get the same acclaim. Nor is it seeing the same kind of demand in this era of peak TV.

All of which leads to the question: What is reality programming’s value in an increasingly on-demand world?

While some nonfiction programming appears on Netflix and Hulu, the opportunities have been more limited.

“With respect to the subscription video-on-demand space, there has been no interest at this particular time in any of the reality types of programming,” one studio executive said.

Unlike networks, which need to fill a programming grid, buyers in an on-demand world are looking for shows that will give their services cachet and recruit and retain subscribers. “Reality is popular on networks, but it’s still viewed as voyeuristic. It’s not necessarily high-end programming,” the studio executive said.

Finding Viewers on SVOD
But as subscription services proliferate and mature, their attitude toward nonfiction could be changing. Viewers are watching more reality shows on demand. Streaming services are showing more interest in creating their own unscripted programming and adding existing shows to their offerings.

According to comScore, the top 10 rated reality programs for the 2016-17 broadcast season garnered more than 66 million VOD transactions, up 26% from the prior broadcast season’s reality programs. The gain came as overall VOD transactions dipped 3% from the prior year.

“I talk to people who produce shows for Discovery, Scripps Networks and A+E [Networks], and they all say they’re getting more interest from SVOD,” MoffettNathanson Research analyst Michael Nathanson said. “Given the price of scripted programming is going up, they’re looking at unscripted, which is less expensive, so they can raise their margins.”

Hulu currently pitches subscribers what it calls the largest offering of unscripted programming available on a streaming platform, with thousands of episodes from Scripps Networks, A+E and NBCUniversal.

“As SVOD programmers, we are always looking for content that will drive subscriber growth and keep viewers engaged,” Hulu vice president of content consumption Lisa Holme said. “We see unscripted series as an excellent driver of engagement and consumption, which correlate highly with retention. In the case of Hulu, we uniquely have a very robust advertising business, and so driving lots of hours of consumption is a priority for us, and unscripted can be a cost-effective way to balance the overall portfolio of content.”

Holme said Hulu subscribers watch a lot of unscripted programming. It accounts for a double-digit share of overall consumption on the service. “Outside of catching up on the latest episode of current series — The Voice, The Bachelor, etc. — we see a lot of viewing of character-based reality and competition-based reality, as well as, more recently, … food, home, travel-related series,” she said.

Prior seasons of broadcast series such as CBS’s Survivor and Amazing Race are popular, too. “People are often surprised that prior seasons of those series, as well as series like [Real] Housewives and [Keeping Up With the] Kardashians are consumed as much as they are on Hulu,” Holme said.

Netflix did not return calls seeking comment on nonfiction programming. Netflix’s reality offerings include Skin Wars, Tornado Hunters, America’s Funniest Home Videos and Undercover Boss.

Audiences as Loyal as Scripted Fans
TV networks say unscripted shows attract loyal audiences just like scripted programs.

“People want to be entertained, whether by scripted or unscripted,” Nancy Daniels, president and general manager of Discovery Communications’ s TLC, said. “They seek out what connects with them. We’ve seen big success with our shows even in this landscape where there are so many choices.”

While it’s harder to get viewers to watch reruns, Daniels said people watch old episodes of series like Little People, Big World to see what the characters looked like when they were younger. “The twins, Jeremy and Zack, have gotten married. They’re having children of their own. But you can go back to when they were 10 years old, starting out,” she said.

While TLC shows still get the bulk of their viewership on the linear channel, the shows that do best on the network also do best on demand or on the TLC Go app. TLC this year created an original spinoff of its 90 Day Fiancé franchise for the app called 90 Day Fiancé: What Now. “It’s been a huge driver for us on Go,” Daniels said.

Off-channel viewing is becoming an important factor in deciding which TLC series get renewed, Daniels said. “We’re not just looking at linear ratings anymore; we’re looking at overall audience engagement,” she said. “That’s certainly been an evolution for us over the last couple of years.”

App viewing is one way Discovery Communications is monetizing its mainly nonfiction programming.

“When it comes to Discovery unscripted, ours has tremendous value,” Discovery Communications chief commercial officer Paul Guyardo said.

Guyardo said that about 40% of what’s being watched on Discovery’s Go apps is library content, as opposed to current series. “Forty percent is a lot bigger than we thought,” he said.

For series on Investigation Discovery, people are streaming episodes they’ve already seen, “to pick up on clues that they didn’t catch the first time,” Guyardo said.

Discovery Communciations is not selling its programming to Netflix. It does have some shows on Hulu. The company is focusing on getting its core networks included on skinny bundles being offered by virtual distributors being rolled out by Hulu, DirecTV, YouTube and others.

Guyardo insists there’s demand for Discovery’s unscripted programing. “It’s our choice not to sell it in pieces, but rather to feature it all on our own digital platform or in skinny bundles, so we’re getting all the shows’ branding and equity.”

He added that Discovery’s programming is a good deal. “If you look at it relative to what distributors are paying for sports or paying for scripted, I would say we are an exceptionally good value.”

Producers said the subscription services are coming to them looking for original unscripted shows.

“Nonfiction may not be as sexy, but it’s very, very cost-effective,” said John Ford, a former Discovery executive and now general manager of NPACT, a trade association representing non-fiction programmers with about 100 member companies. “So you look at broadcast and cable any time of year, you take out sports programming, and many of the top 10, top 15, top 20 programs are nonscripted.

“You can create a pretty good nonscripted show for three or four hundred thousand dollars an hour,” Ford said. “On an hourly basis, you’re spending $3 million to create a scripted show. So you get 10 times the programming for your dollars in nonscripted.”

Ford pointed out there are already documentaries about food and wine on Netflix. Netflix has commissioned the producer of the acclaimed series Planet Earth to make an eight-part series, Our Planet, due to appear in 2019.

Netflix also has some older off-network nonfiction shows as well. “It’s interesting to look, just to troll through Netflix and see all the nonfiction shows that are there,” Ford said. “You’ll find inventory that I was executive producer on back in 2005 and 2006 still lurking in the inventory somewhere.”

Ford said the production of nonfiction programming for Netflix and the other streaming services flies under the radar because the shows don’t involve big stars and budgets. “What’s going on in nonfiction doesn’t necessarily claim the headlines, but I can tell you our members are actively pitching and producing for all of the OTT services,” Ford said.

Digital Is Key to The Workshop
Tom Farrell, CEO and executive producer for The Workshop, said his company is banking on selling shows to on-demand services. Last year, Amazon Prime green-lighted a series about tennis star Novak Djokovic produced by The Workshop, with Farrell as one of the executive producers.

“Everything that we develop has an eye on the digital world now,” Farrell said. “So while we’re still finding homes in the linear space, you would be foolish not to be looking at the digital component of our business.”

Production standards for on-demand shows might be higher than those for networks. “The viewer is so much more demanding because they’re going to it consciously, rather than stumbling upon it setting there on the couch riffing through the channels,” Farrell said. “You make a conscious decision, so I think your expectations are higher.”

Cable networks are looking to breathe new life into classic reality series in an effort to get a leg up in a very crowded and competitive television environment.

Iconic reality series such as Trading Spaces (TLC), Cold Case Files (A&E), Cash Cab (Discovery Channel), Cold Justice (Oxygen), Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (Netflix) and Biography (A&E) will return to the small screen later this year and into 2018, hoping to trade on their familiarity with viewers to recapture old fans and draw in new viewers, according to network officials.

“There’s a nostalgia about it,” TLC president and general manager Nancy Daniels said of Trading Spaces, the network’s popular home design and decorating series that ran from 2000-11. The network will resurrect the series next year.

“It’s a brand that people know and love,” Daniels said. “In a world where it’s so hard to break through with something new, to have something that has an automatic, built-in fan base is a gift.”

Indeed, the reality genre is joining its scripted brethren in creating updated versions of classic shows. Decades-old sitcoms such as One Day at a Time and Full House have been resurrected into more contemporary versions by Netflix, while movies such as Lethal Weapon and Westworld were turned into successful scripted series this past fall by Fox and HBO, respectively.

Discovery Channel Group president Rich Ross said bringing back a well-known franchise like Discovery’s unscripted game show series Cash Cab — which will return to the network later this year after a five-year hiatus — provides a network with a built-in marketing advantage that other new shows don’t give it.

“There is no doubt that familiarity gives you a leg up in a crowded universe, and when you don’t have to resell a premise its much easier,” he said. “It’s a simple premise, but seemingly timeless.”

Other networks are bringing back shows that resonate with some of TV’s hottest programming-genre trends. A&E this past February relaunched its documentary series Cold Case Files after an 11-year hiatus, amid the growing popularity of true crime programming within the TV marketplace.

Advancements in crime-solving technology — along with good, old-fashioned detective work — have created new interest in the series, Elaine Frontain Bryant, A&E executive vice president and head of programming, said.

“Good ideas are good ideas, and when they can be revamped in new ways and come back as fresh, it can work again,” she said. “The show had been off for several years, but given this renewed interest in crime programming, we thought this was the perfect time to bring it back.”

The surge in popularity for home improvement-themed content in recent years was the catalyst for TLC’s decision to resurrect Trading Spaces, according to Daniels.

“The home and property shows are huge and everybody has their favorites,” she said. “We absolutely think there’s still a rabid consumption of property shows, and with Trading Spaces we can draw in those viewers that are nostalgic about the show as well as new viewers.”

TLC is just starting the process and has not made any decisions on the reboot, Daniels said, including who will host the reality series. She did not rule out bringing back the original Trading Spaces cast, including host Paige Davis.

“There’s such an affinity for it, and it just felt like the time was right,” Daniels said.

TLC will look to build on its property and home improvement lineup with the return of its classic series Trading Spaces, the network said.

The series, which ran on TLC from 2000-2011 and helped usher in the popular home improvement genre on cable, will make its return to the network in 2018, according to TLC president and general manager Nancy Daniels. She added the network is “open” to having the stars from the original series return in the reboot -- including former host Paige Davis -- although no deals have been reached. 

The announcement comes on the heels of the network’s recent launch of home improvement series Nate & Jeremiah bBy Design.

“We are thrilled to expand in this space, and what better way to do that than to bring back Trading Spaces, the series that put property on the map,” Daniels said.

The network also said it will launch later this year, This Is Life Live, a four-day live event that will follow the personal journeys of families experiencing an extraordinary circumstance, said network officials. 

In other TLC news, the network will spin off its relationship-themed series 90 Day Fiancé with the development of 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days and a digital series 90 Day Fiancé: What Now?Also in the genre, the network will develop new series Hear Me, Love Me, See Me, said network officials.

The network will also develop several documentaries, including The Fall, which relives the controversy surrounding the collision between Olympic runners Mary Decker and Zola Budd during the 1984 Olympics, and Diana: Tragedy or Treason, focusing on the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death.

TLC outlined on Tuesday (March 31) a new programming lineup built around series featuring style makeovers, weddings, families and what the network characterized as "milestone moments."

Follow those themes in order, and it could be a conventional recipe for success, at least in the eyes of TLC viewers, who the network "affectionately" called "heart seekers."

"[They] come to us for a sense of community – to share their own lives and the real lives of the people on TLC," Nancy Daniels, TLC general manager, said.

The network touted its viewers' engagement with programming between seasons via social media and Web platforms, citing its ranking among the top 5 most social cable networks for reality programming in 2014 (per Nielsen Social, ranked by unique authors) and a 267% increase in average monthly engaged users on its Facebook pages from 2013 to 2014 (per Facebook Insights).

In the offing this year for viewers to engage with are more than 50 new and returning series, comprising more than 500 hours of original programming, TLC said.

Adding to its roster of shows about unconventional families, established by 19 Kids and Counting (the Duggars), Little People, Big World and the departed Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, TLC has slated two new entries for for the third quarter: Hardly Royal (working title), about blue-collar car repair advisor David Drew and his family after he discovers "he is heir and rightful King of the Isle of Mann in the United Kingdom"; and Quinceañera (w.t.), about two cousins who are Miami's premiere party planners and dress shop owners serving that momentous Latin American cultural tradition.

A TLC spokesperson confirmed that the previously announced series All That Jazz about transgender teen activist Jazz Jennings and her family remains on track to premiere this summer.

Other family-themed shows on tap this year include Long Lost Family, reuniting separated family members, which premieres this quarter, and I Got You Babies (w.t.), a docu-series scheduled for first-quarter 2016 that will track four sets of first-time parents over the course of their child's first year.

In the style and weddings category, TLC announced makeover series Dare to Wear and Brides Gone Styled, both coming in the second quarter; and #SaveMyStyle (w.t.) and Swipe Right (w.t.), which adds a digital dating twist to the format, both scheduled for Q3. Additionally, the self-explanatory Extreme Dream Weddings premieres in Q3.

TLC's "milestone moments" programming essentially covers dating and marriage. The network characterized two of them as "a new social experiment": Marriage Pact (w.t.), which explores whether marital success increases when you marry your best friend or friend with benefits, and Married by Mom and Dad (w.t.), about couples matched for marriage by their parents (Q4).

Also scheduled for Q3 in the milestone moments of dating genre is 3 Bad Dates, 1 Soul Mate, which "recreates the dating misadventures of two women whose love lives play out like Hollywood rom coms," TLC said.

Discovery Channel's Scott Lewers, senior vice president of programming, is moving to sister network TLC as senior VP of multiplatform strategy, a position that will cut across business groups including digital, social, production, marketing, communications, programming and sales, the network said.

Lewers, whose new position begins immediately, will report to TLC general manager Nancy Daniels, the network said. He is charged with identifying opportunities to broaden TLC's audience reach across on-air, online and social platforms, a role similar to one he played at Oxygen prior to joining Discovery.

While at Discovery Channel, Lewers spearheaded new content for the network including Shark After Dark, the first live late-night Shark Week talk show, and championed the network’s digital content, including the record-breaking Skywire Live With Nik Wallenda, which won an Emmy for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media -- Multiplatform Storytelling. Lewers won a 2012 Sports Emmy Award -- Outstanding New Approaches, Sports Event Coverage -- as part of the team behind Discovery Channel's Space Jump Live.

At NBCU Lewers was vice president of strategic multiplatform program planning & acquisitions at Oxygen Media, where he directed the network's strategy and overall programming direction across all platforms. Before that he was manager of programming, scheduling & acquisitions at Lifetime Entertainment.

Noting that TLC's audience is socially and digitally engaged, Daniels said Lewers's appointment "continues our strategy to leverage all of our platforms to create the most engaging experience to viewers, as we build an even stronger brand.”