야생꽃 정원

A new logo Animal Planet debuted during the channel’s popular “Puppy Bowl” on Sunday, replacing its elephant-and-globe logo with one that has bold lettering (above). A slogan on the channel’s Web site sums up the changes this way: “Same Planet, Different World.”

The makeover is meant to draw in more adult viewers with shows that emphasize animals’ feral nature rather than their warm-and-cuddly exteriors. At a news conference in Times Square on Monday, Marjorie Kaplan, the channel’s general manager, said the new content “will lead viewers to see animals as characters” rather than mere creatures.

Referring to the old logo, she said that elephants would still appear in the brand ID from time to time, peeking in and out of the giant letter “N” in the word animal.

“But we like them too much to ask them to stand still,” she said, reflecting a more aggressive Animal Planet that she hopes will win viewers.

During prime time, the channel drew an average of 537,000 viewers in 2007, down from 595,000 in 2006. “The numbers are pretty disappointing for a network of their size,” said Derek Baine, a senior analyst for the media research firm SNL Kagan, last month.
Animal Planet’s parent company, Discovery Communications, hopes that the programming shift will boost the ratings. Television commercials showing the network’s new shows are running now; print ads, using images by the photographer Jill Greenberg, will appear in magazines this week. Ads on bus shelters and in mass transit will appear mid-month.

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