MarketingVOX: NBC Universal hopes to increase online revenues five-fold by 2009 – from $200 million this year to $1 billion – and to do so will revamp its women’s website iVillage as well as launch a subscription site.
NBC’s relaunch of iVillage, which it purchased in March for $600 million, will target advertising revenues from the beauty, health and fashion categories. NBC chief executive Bob Wright told the Financial Times NBC plans to make it the cornerstone of its online activities, much as MySpace has become for News Corp. iVillage now attracts about 15 million users a month.
Plans include adding video and community tools to allow its core audience of women ages 30-50 to swap ideas and advice. Immediate plans are to launch iVillage Live, a web-based TV show that will also be offered to TV stations in the NBC network.
NBC is also testing a new website for CNBC, to be launched by the end of the year. It would charge subscriptions for access to all interviews and features run on the cable channel, as well as real-time charts and a search engine.
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- Yahoo Takes iVillage Away from Google
- iVillage Buys Another Medical Publisher
- iVillage Pushes Video Ads
