Labor, Love and Ratings

Maree Florence has a spot reserved in her living room for at least an hour each day. The ritual is simple; she sits down, calls a friend and turns on the TV. She's not interested in following the inflated antics on General Hospital or in catching the latest familial betrayal on Jerry Springer. Instead, she turns on the back-to-back A Wedding Story and A Baby Story--half-hour shows about real couples getting married and having kids--on TLC daytime. "I cry at every one," says the 21-year-old Georgia mom. "I can't help it."

Neither can millions of other women. At a time when fictional soaps are struggling and talk-show ratings are flat, TLC has created buzz--and unprecedented ratings--among the coveted demographic of women ages 18 to 34--out of a lineup of low-budget "lifestyle documentaries" that allow viewers to peer into the lives of real people as they experience key rites of passage. Last month's premiere of A Dating Story (you guessed it, real blind dates) grabbed the No. 1 cable ranking in its time slot among younger women--a coup all the more remarkable because TLC has so far done no advertising for daytime, relying entirely on word of mouth.

What's the draw? For one thing, say fans, the shows--yin to the cops-and-car-chase, reality-fare yang--are an emotional thrill ride. It's great weeping material when real dads kiss real daughters goodbye at the altar or when childless couples are handed a baby by a birth mother. And then there's the encouragement of seeing commitment-friendly men, who well up more often than their female companions. (Says Pie Town Productions' Joan O'Connor, who is single, of her work as one of the producers of Baby: "It has given me some hope.")

Formerly known as the Learning Channel, TLC wasn't always this intuitive. Before Discovery Communications acquired it in 1991, the channel's more scintillating programs included an IRS-sponsored instructional called The Subject Is Taxes and the crafts-oriented Sew What's New. Translating its pedagogical mission into warmer, fuzzier, but still informative reality fare for women fell to daytime-programming chief Chuck Gingold, who had worked at Lifetime and had noticed the huge success of shows about weddings like that of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. With heightened competition for the women's market, voyeurism at a premium and a fragmented culture shorter than ever on rituals, Gingold's mid-five-figure-budget shows may be the harbinger of a trend.

The shows are working for TLC--whose daytime, toll-free, direct-response ads have been replaced by commercials from Wal-Mart and Sony. So assuming the more suspenseful Dating continues to perform, can tearful bat mitzvahs and confirmations be far behind? Gingold won't say, but he does drive one point home. "You won't be seeing divorces or funerals. This is happy TV."