43
Channel gets you hooked on crime
1-18-2 subhead goes here and goes here
AP Television Writer
NEW YORK
Henry Schleiff wants to simplify your life.
He wants to school you in life lessons.
He wants to hook you on crime.
As a group president at Discovery Communications, Schleiff is boss of Investigation Discovery, or ID for short, a network whose motto might be: “Where bad things happen to good (or hapless or downright clueless) people.”
ID is awash with real-life tales of greed, passion and outright evil served up with sassy titles like “A Crime to Remember,” “I Almost Got Away With It” and “Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry?”
Hooked?! Think of watching ID as being turned loose in a frozen yogurt shop: one delectable product in countless flavors you just can’t stop spooning up.
Meanwhile, ID guarantees you practical tips.
“If you live on a farm and it’s Halloween and there’s a storm, you don’t go down to the barn when you hear the door clanging,” advises Schleiff, reflecting on a sample episode’s message. “Or: If you meet a guy in a library who’s writing a book on serial murders, you don’t invite him to move in with you right away.”
Good to know. But what about ID making life simpler?
“Mystery and suspense is the most popular storytelling genre in the world,” says Schleiff, “and there are lots of places on TV where you can watch it in bits and pieces. But we’re the only network dedicated to it 24/7, 365 days a year. In a world of confusion, with 8,000 TV networks, we can simplify things: We tell a good story any time.”
So you might say ID is like whodunit wallpaper?
“It is absolutely wallpaper!” Schleiff agrees proudly.
He is a showman, a tireless promoter, a man who, at 67, describes his unflagging workplace gusto by citing Woody Allen’s statement of affection in “Annie Hall”: “Forget ‘like’ or ‘love,”’ says Schleiff. “I ‘luuurve’ this stuff!”
He arrived at Discovery in 2009, when the fledgling ID was ranked 50th among cable networks. Now available in 86 million homes, it is a top 10 network in the 25-to-54 demo and No. 1 in all of television among women 25-to-54 for how long they watch before changing the channel — nearly an hour.