HGTV Design Star Sees Ratings Gains for Fifth Week

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. [For Immediate Release - August 18, 2009] Keeping pace with formidable competition from the premiere of AMC's Mad Men and E!'s Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami, HGTV Design Star delivered a 2.06 HH Rtg/1.13 P25-54 Rtg on Sunday, 8/16/09 at 10P. On average, this episode delivered 2,598,000 P2+ impressions. It also performed well among W25-54 with a 1.64 Rtg. Since the premiere episode of season four, more than 16.4 million P2+ and more than 8 million P25-54 have tuned in to watch the series.

HGTV Design Star's strong performance also drove viewership of Real Estate Intervention at 11P on Sunday, 8/16/09. The episode garnered ratings increases of at least 15% over the prior week's episode among all key demos, including a 34% increase among P25-54.

HGTV ranked #6 P25-54 among ad supported cable in prime on Sunday night. The fifth episode of HGTV Design Star placed 8th among all ad supported cable programs. For the week of 8/10/09 in prime time, HGTV garnered a #10 P25-54 ranking among ad supported cable networks.

The HGTV Design Star section is also a huge hit online at HGTV.com with millions of weekly page views driving traffic up +172 % and video plays per week up +89% versus the previous season. More than 840,000 online votes have also been cast for the fan favorite.

About HGTV

HGTV, America's leader in home and lifestyle programming, is distributed to more than 95 million U.S. households and is one of cable's top-rated networks. HGTV's website, HGTV.com , is the nation's leading online home-and-garden destination which attracts an average of 5 million unique visitors per month. HGTV owns 33 percent of HGTV Canada and provides much of the Canadian network's daily programming.

The network's branded programming also can be seen in 120 territories across all seven continents and its selected programming is available to military personnel onboard Navy ships and through American Forces Radio & Television Service (AFRTS), which services more than 1,000 outlets in over 175 countries. Headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn., with offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York and San Francisco, HGTV is wholly owned by Scripps Networks, which also operates Food Network, DIY Network, Fine Living Network and Great American Country.