Tough guys take over TV

Are you tough enough?

If not, no problem. There are plenty of tough guys to live through vicariously on TV.

From lumberjacks to king crab fishermen, workers risking life and limb at dangerous jobs, adventurers relying on survival skills in the wilderness and hard-hitting mixed martial arts fighters are becoming unlikely stars of increasingly popular, testosterone-fueled programming.

Call it tough-guy TV -- a genre that's more real than most reality shows, typically blending documentary-style storytelling with action, drama and jocular humor, and stretching from the roiling Arctic seas to bloodied cagefighting rings.

In programming parlance, most are best known as docusoaps. Think Discovery Channel's Survivorman, not CBS' Survivor, starring tough guys, not wannabes.

"These shows have become a phenomenon," says John Ford, president of Discovery Channel, whose burgeoning tough-guy slate includes fishing saga Deadliest Catch, among cable TV's highest-rated unscripted series (averaging 3.4 million viewers ...