NBC-Universal hopes to use iVillage as a hub for distributing online its non-news TV content, and plans to use its production capabilities to generate original content for the Internet community company. Those were the key take-aways from the media call held today to discuss NBC-U’s $600 million acquisition of iVillage (replay here.)
“They know how to create sustained communities. We know how to create great content. Together we should give advertisers a unique opportunity to connect with their targeted audiences,” Bob Wright, Vice Chairman and Executive Officer, General Electric (parent company of NBC-Universal) said.
“NBC will turbo-charge this product,” Beth Comstock, President, NBC Universal Digital Media and Market Development said, noting that not only will iVillage become an outlet for NBC-U video content, but NBC-U will use its TV properties to drive traffic to iVillage. “We think iVillage matches well with our digital strategy and our strategy is all about creating engaging content and matching it with compelling destinations.”
There’s no question that NBC-U’s interest in iVillage is driven by its desire to create an Internet-based video outlet. “We see some fantastic opportunities to marry the iVillage content with our TV content,” Comstock said.
“From a television perspective we will be able to go back and forth online and on-air with network and cable,” Jeff Zucker, CEO, NBC Universal Television Group, said. Both Zucker and Comstock underscored the plan to create new and original content for iVillage.
“We will be looking for a great deal of original content. It’s an acknowledgement that both the consumer and the advertiser is looking for a new experience,” Zucker said. “There is content that we will be able to repurpose from existing programming and we have production capabilities to produce content around existing themes…It wouldn’t be hard for us to crank up the video production to get programming there,”Comstock said.
Although it looks like NBC-U is following in the footsteps of News Corp. by pushing ahead into the online community realm, in fact News Corp.’s recently acquired social networking and Web 2.0 properties, such as MySpace, are not really outlets for the company’s television product — at least not yet.
Cynthia Brumfield at 2:51 PM|Comments(0)
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