NBC-iVillage Marriage Already Loveless And Dull After One Year
from the nice-and-functional dept
Last year, when NBC bought out iVillage, the women-oriented online content firm, it looked like a classic case of major media company thinking it could evolve by buying its way onto the internet. Predictably, the company tried to portray the move as something more than a land grab, trotting out terms like “synergies”, as it extolled the potential for cross promotions between iVillage and the Today show. The New York Times reports on how the marriage is doing one year later, and not surprisingly, many of these lofty ambitions haven’t panned out. Although ad revenue has been solid, iVillage hasn’t shown itself to be a strategic asset. Cross promotions with Today have been a total flop and other attempts to put iVillage content on TV have also been a failure. At this point, the deal is panning out very much as we anticipated. From a purely monetary perspective, you could argue that NBC made out okay. But if it really thought that the purchase could help it successfully orient its business around the internet, iVillage hasn’t had much of an effect.
Comments on “NBC-iVillage Marriage Already Loveless And Dull After One Year”
MySpace & FOX-no different!
Big media kills innovative web players. Processes and web people don’t mix! When will the media guys learn?
put katie couric on there. she can save anything!
The compensation packages for these two spaces are vastly different. Once mostly vested, the talent at purchased web sites flee to other web sites. Media companies don’t give options, they don’t give 12% annual raises, etc.
If somebody wasn’t so CHICKEN, and would submit an apron photo, Ivillage would be doing a whole lot better.
Way off base
I think they were just way off base with the subject matters on the TV show. I love the website, and made a couple of attemts to watch the show. All I can say is the topics were, well BORING. They should read the message boards and see what peoples interests are, then do a show about it. Not do a show and encourage people to go to the boards to write about it.
The webiste is fun and exciting, I would have expected them to stick with that on the show. Average, everyday topics of concern for the average everyday woman.