National Geographic Channel is launching a broadband video Web site with six channels divided by genre. The ad-supported site is launching with 1500 clips grouped into “Animals & Nature,” “Exploration & Adventure,“ “History & Events,“ “People & Places,“ “Science & Technology” and “Nat Geo Wild.”
The channel previously grouped its online video by show but found that traffic on NGC Wild — a separate site devoted to wildlife — outdrew that of the show-grouped video on its main site by about 3 to 1.
While nearly all of the videos in each category will come from the network’s shows, there will be some additional footage from the National Geographic Society, which co-owns the channel with Fox Cable Networks.
The National Geographic Channel, which plans to add four new video channels to its Web site each year, is changing its Web approach in the face of competition from the similarly themed Discovery Communications networks and The History Channel. Both have invested in online improvements in the past year as all networks try to figure out how to best exploit their video online.
