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A year after its $600 million acquisition of women’s portal iVillage, NBC Universal has been slow to integrate the site with its other properties, despite having announced that the site would become the centerpiece of its digital strategy, writes Ad Age (via MarketingVox).
Not rolling out Web 2.0 features quickly enough, including blogging and social networking, has been a notable shortcoming; it faces a growing onslaught from women’s publishing giants such as Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Meredith, CondeNet and Hearst, some of which iVillage has relied on for content.
Traffic numbers in the year since NBC acquired iVillage have been stagnant. iVillage should have benefited from the syndicated TV show “iVillage Live,” which launched on Dec. 4 and is carried by the NBC-owned and -operated stations. But traffic to the site actually decreased to 13.5 million unique users in December from 14.4 million in November.
TNS Media Intelligence reports that iVillage ad revenue was $40.9 million in 2006, whereas NBC Universal has said it aims to reel in around $1 billion in digital revenue by 2009.
All sectors of the media business will suffer from the weakened economy in 2008 and 2009, with a slump in local advertising particularly hurting newspapers and local TV, according to a new projection from Goldman Sachs.
Broadcast nets will experience…
The New York Times is shuttering its International Herald Tribune site; NYTimes.com will soon host the international news normally reserved for its sister website.
The move is not about cost savings, but rather about growth, NYTimes.com general manager Vivian Schiller…
Unilever’s Vaseline set forth on an unusual research project in a small town in Alaska. Setting up a storefront, the company began giving away free bottles of lotion and asking recipients to name the person who had recommended they come…
Meet the Press, the show hosted by Tim Russert for 17 years before his death last June, is beginning to slip in ratings.
Last month, CBS’s Face the Nation pulled ahead of Meet the Press for the first time in two…
Bloggers collectively create nearly one million blog posts each day, and half of bloggers believe blogs will be a primary source of news and entertainment in the next five years, according to Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere Report, MarketingCharts writes.…
Wal-Mart and Costco reported same-store gains in September, with sales rising 2.4% and 9% respectively. Sales at Target stores open at least a year fell 3%, writes Retailer Daily.
Below, fiscal results from the discount retail giants:
Sales of food and…
