Versus 10-year plan focuses on younger male audience
Comcast Corp.'s Versus has gone mano a mano in its entertainment to boost ratings on the national sports network.
On Dec. 3, the 24-hour channel will present a new episode of The Contender, a reality boxing show previously on NBC and ESPN. The Contender will join mixed-martial-arts cage fighting and NHL games in prime time.
"We are trying to find the programming that hits our audience, no pun intended," said Marc Fein, executive vice president for programming, production and business operations at Versus.
There are also bull riding and Indy racing and the Tour de France. On Friday nights and weekend mornings, Versus Country shows hunting and fishing for a legacy hard-core audience from its days as the Outdoor Life Network.
This year, Comcast moved the channel's top executives and managers to Philadelphia from Connecticut and hired a new president, Jamie Davis. Versus' live studios remain in Stamford, Conn., and public relations in New York. The operation employs 115.
Davis, a former Fox Sports executive who joined in September, said he wouldn't be creating a "me-too ESPN" or ESPN3.
"Stats and data are a commodity. That's not what we want," Davis said. "We don't want to be in every sport."
Versus needs an attitude or a "glue that holds the sports together," said Jeff Shell, president of the Comcast programming group in Philadelphia, adding that he was thrilled with the channel's progress since its new direction two years ago. Average viewership has doubled to about 250,000 homes a night, he said.
Versus won't likely catch the category killer, ESPN, but executives say it can be a respectable general-sports brand in the loudmouth field of Fox Sports, TNT, NBC Sports and niche channels, such as the NFL Network.
Two years ago, Comcast realized it had a big problem with the Outdoor Life Network. The typical viewer was older than 50, and hunting and fishing had a narrow advertiser base. More at Philly.com