iVillage Has Veteran Status But NBCU Version Still A Work In Progress

As it happens, I was looking at some iVillage metrics when a negative AdAge article about the site’s performance post-NBCU acquisition popped up on the radar. The headline Digital Darling Languishes at NBC accompanies an article that describes iVillage’s pace as “more akin to dial-up than broadband” since last May when the $600 million acquisition closed with traffic “stuck” around 15 million uniques and failing to convert its NBC advantage.
The numbers being touted in an internal memo sent last week paint a slightly different picture, with a 13.3 percent increase in February uniques year over year to 15.1 million, according to comScore/MediaMetrix stats. Other data from the ratings service shows seven months of gains in monthly uniques ranging from the very low single digits to the first double-digit month — February ’07. Internal stats show eight months of consecutive year-over-year growth in page views, a less meaningful stat than monthly uniques for me. AdAge points to a sequential drop in uniques from November to December, the suggestion being the site should have seen more traffic, not less, given the launch of syndicated TV show iVillage Live. I can’t get too excited given the holiday season it covers and the still-limited distribution of the show.
An ostensibly more meaningful number: the women’s network delivered more than $100 million in revenue for 2006.
To be fair, before NBCU acquired it, iVillage.com was under 15 million monthly uniques and had been hovering in the neighborhood for quite some time. Observers expecting more of an instant boost from the acquisition and exposure on NBCU’s networks, including the Today Show, are disappointed. But iVillage president Deborah Fine has been on board only since September and many of the initiatives being put into to place — expanded exposure on Today and its corresponding site, a deal with The Knot, gaming deals with Pogo and EA; and more aren’t at full traction. Ad sales are benefiting from new ownership and management as well as cross-selling options. As long anticipated, iVillage is soon to lose the last of its content connections to Hearst, sure to hurt but no one can really say how much will be replaced by the moves since Fine came on. At the same time, it also has increasing competition for dollars and users in every major area — women’s issues, health, home, food. Disney Family is just the latest to enter the arena.
Upshot: Too soon to tell whether NBCU can push iVillage to the next level or whether it will have to make the most of a 15-16 million-monthly-uniques site — not shabby, but not what GE had in mind last May and not what is expected of a site touted as the would-be hub of NBCU’s digital media strategy. We’ll continue to check in.
Related:
iVillage Touts Corporate Ties In Online Health Site Launch
— <a href="http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/ivillage-taps-corporate-ties-in-online-health-site-launch/&quot; title="iVillage

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