NBC MAKING A CLEAN START IN A HOUSE OF MIXED MEDIA
When iVillage showed up on the web it was quicly popular with women of all ages. Here was a forum where women could share questions all women had in common and find helpful suggestions to use. NBC stepped in and iVillage has gone on a long downward slide.
“Promotions on “Today” did not spike traffic to the Web site as expected. Veteran Web employees fled after a decision to move iVillage’s offices to New Jersey from Manhattan. Hearst, which had long featured content from Cosmopolitan and Redbook on the site, severed ties so it could bulk up its own Internet business.”
“Most embarrassing, an effort to increase traffic by introducing a syndicated television program, “iVillage Live,” resulted in a month-to-month drop in visitors to the iVillage Web site. Introduced last December, “iVillage Live,” carried on NBC-owned stations in 10 cities, was seen as a failure on its own, suffering from low ratings, poor production quality and a certain nagging cloying quality. It ceased production in June, but is still running in repeats and will return, after a full makeover, next month.”
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