Methods and apparatus to identify media content using temporal signal characteristics are disclosed. An example method includes generating a reference signature based on a reference signal corresponding to known media, generating sums based on peaks in a media signal corresponding to media, identifying signal peaks based on the generated sums, generating a second signature based on normalized curve features, wherein the normalized curve features respectively correspond to the identified signal peaks at a corresponding temporal locations of the corresponding signal peak, and determining whether the media signal corresponds to the reference signal based on a comparison of the reference signature and the second signature.