Bonnie Hammer’s formula for the USA channel: "We established a set of criteria. It would be character-centric, upbeat, not down or depressing, edgy, but not dark.”

NYT / Kevin Scanlon

Bonnie Hammer, whose success since she took the helm of both USA cable network and the Sci Fi Channel recently earned her control of the cable programming portion of the newly divided Universal television studio, has a simple formula for her success: upbeat programming.

That’s upbeat as in: “We’re entertainment. We’re escapism. We’re not dark. We give you a little levity, a little blue skies,” Hammer said in a recent interview in her Manhattan office, “without being Baywatch. ”

In the past several years USA has strengthened its position as the cable network with the highest ratings (Sci-Fi is number seven) by augmenting its lineup of movies and repeats of broadcast network shows like House and Law & Order: SVU with a sprinkling of new one-hour dramas. Most of these — Psych, Starter Wife and Burn Notice — have been part of the wave of hits that has emerged over the past several years on cable during the summer. All of them convey a consistently USA upbeat tone, even in the face of sometimes grisly subject matter.

The latest offering from USA is In Plain Sight, a drama about a federal marshal, played by Mary McCormack, who guards people in the witness protection program while dealing with her own dysfunctional family. The show’s premiere on May 30 pulled in 5.2 million viewers, more than any other program on television at that hour except an episode of Dateline on NBC.

Given those successes, and hits like Battlestar Galactica and Tin Men on the Sci Fi Channel, it is clear why Hammer’s record as a programmer caught the attention of executives at NBC Universal, which owns Sci Fi, USA and six other cable channels.

“To say the channels under Bonnie are working is a huge understatement,” said Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of NBC Universal. “Right now USA’s track record is unparalleled anywhere else in television.”

And in her new post NBC Universal only wants her to do more. Jeff Gaspin, who heads the company’s cable division, has pushed new assignments onto Hammer’s plate, starting with two of the company’s newest cable channels, Sleuth (mystery-theme shows) and Chiller (horror-theme shows).

The shift gives shows for NBC’s cable channels equal footing with those developed for the broadcast network. NBC executives said that it would allow them to develop shows specifically for cable and to keep their budgets small enough for cable channels. In the past studios tended to develop shows for broadcast networks, with leftovers going to cable.

“It’s a bigger picture view,” Hammer, 58, said. “Before, it was the studio that was looking hard at the profit and loss. I would be pushing: I need the rating. I want the money on the screen. I need the special effects. Did I care if the studio had to spend more money? Of course not.”

Hammer’s latest promotion continues her steady ascent at NBC Universal. A native of Queens, she started in local television in Boston in the 1970s, eventually moving to a programming position at Lifetime.

She joined Universal Television in 1989 and remained there under a number of corporate regimes. She moved to Sci Fi in 1998, becoming its president in 2001. (She brought a bit of her program philosophy to Sci Fi, steering it toward shows that were not too techy, not serialized, and, yes, more upbeat — occasionally irritating some hard-core sci-fi fans in the process.)

When NBC acquired Universal in 2004, Zucker met with Hammer. He asked her: “If I were to give you USA, what would you do?” Hammer told him she would make two major moves. First she would reacquire WWE wrestling programming, which had been an important part of USA before it lost the franchise in 2000; and second, “I would give it a brand.” For years USA had scored impressive ratings but it was not distinguished by any particular programming or image.

Research that NBC conducted showed that focus groups described the channel in terms Hammer described as “like an old shoe: it’s comfortable and familiar, like an old pair of beat-up clogs.”

She decided what the channel needed — besides wrestling, which she won back in 2005 — was a “brand filter.” So she drew upon her penchant for the upbeat. “We established a set of criteria. It would be character-centric, upbeat, not down or depressing, edgy, but not dark.”

USA’s long-running original hit, Monk, already filled the bill. Acknowledging the quirky Monk, the slogan “characters welcome” was adopted.

Now Hammer oversees teams of programmers who understand how to tailor shows to fit the brand, as she defines it.

Consider the example of Burn Notice, the number-one new show on cable television last season, which will enter its second season on USA this month. The writer Matt Nix originally proposed it as a show about a former covert operative (played by Jeffrey Donovan) who was ousted after being “burned” by some unknown adversary and is consumed with finding his enemy and restoring his name. Hammer liked the premise, but she had some serious reservations, such as the setting: Newark.

“It was brilliantly written but unbelievably dark,” Hammer said. “There was all this drug dealing and back-alley stuff. I read it and I said: Will Matt be willing to get away from the stories about drugs and money laundering, give a little more upbeat nature to it? Will he make it a little more blue skies? And get it out of New Jersey?”

Nix, who had spent eight years writing movies that no one produced, thought the message he was getting was a typical kiss-off. It occurred to him only after numerous rewrites that USA really did like the show, as long as he was willing to make adjustments, such as moving the setting to Miami.

As Nix put it: “When Bonnie says blue skies, she means blue skies.”