Monday, September 17, 2007

Retirement Living TV – winner or loser?

Retirement Living TV (RLTV), based in Columbia, is celebrating its first anniversary. The channel claims to be the only cable network aimed at 55-plus viewers.

RLTV is carried in 28 million homes on DirecTV and Comcast and has produced more than 650 hours of original programming, according to company information. Last week, it signed on with AARP to produce programming from the AARP studio in Washington..

Programming includes ‘‘The Voice,” which highlights social issues; ‘‘Healthline,” which promotes the idea that good health goes hand-in-hand with enjoying life; a personal finance show, ‘‘The Prudent Advisor,” and ‘‘The Art of Living,” about ‘‘ordinary people from around the country who are living extraordinary lives doing what they love to do” . Mmmm.

Not everybody is enthusiastic about the network’s chance of success. The resident scholar at the Library of American Broadcasting (University of Maryland) believes: "It is too early, and will work in 10 years, but not now.”

He thinks the problem will be in sustaining programming and finding common interests of baby boomers that advertising will want to reach.

This guy asks a very pertinent question: ‘‘Do they all have enough in common that advertising will want to reach them” – he doesn’t think so. You can read the full story in Gazette.

I don’t know enough about US TV to pass an opinion. Has anybody seen any of the programming? All comments welcome. Dick Stroud

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I took a look at the site. One feature the article doesn't mention is the rich library of political content... clearly of interest to me and others like me. www.rl.tv -- look at the link for Talk2 and Encore for instance.

Hugh

Anonymous said...

I think this RLTV organization has a good idea. The baby boomer generation is the most educated adult population in history and they have a lot of disposable income. Also, they are much more active and engaged in life and participate and lead many social trends. They are not just passive spectators like in the past. So, I think advertisers will be quite interested in programming that targets this huge and influential demographic.