Updated: Zalaznick Adds Control Of iVillage With Promotion

Announces "Women@NBCU" to Help Advertisers Reach female Viewers.

By Anne Becker -- Broadcasting & Cable, 5/7/2008 6:58:00 AM MT

NBC Universal has promoted Lauren Zalaznick to President, NBC Universal Women and Lifestyle Entertainment networks, giving her oversight of the iVillage Website in addition to Bravo Media, Oxygen Media and the company’s environmental campaign, “Green is Universal.” She continues to report to Jeff Gaspin, President/Chief Operating Officer, Universal Television Group. iVillage Properties President Deborah Fine now reports Bravo president and incoming Oxygen president Lauren Zalaznick to Zalaznick.

With the promotion, Zalaznick will oversee “Women@NBCU,” a research, sales and marketing group tasked with delivering to advertisers targeted groups of women consumers that can be reached by combining NBC U’s properties – the cable networks, including Bravo and Oxygen; iVillage; the Today show on NBC, as well as the broadcast network’s primetime; and movies from its studio. The initiative puts a name on the “women’s network” NBC U has been talking up since buying iVillage, promising to deliver advertisers any demographic slice of women they desire.

“It’s really important to me that it’s not an accumulation of commas in a title,” Zalaznick told B&C in an interview. “It’s not in my interest to line up cards in a deck. This media conglomerate is now organized to bring absolute mass to Madison Avenue with targeted reach. If you like targeted, but you need mass, you can get it here.”

NBC U has struggled to integrate and best capitalize on iVillage after buying the women-focused Website in 2006 for some $600 million, a number GE Chief Executive Jeffrey R. Immelt later said was too high. The company has so far been unable to bring traffic spikes to the Website and also failed with a syndicated TV program, iVillage Live. With ratings and branding success at both Bravo and Oxygen, which NBC U bought for some $900 million last fall, Zalaznick now becomes the chief executive looking to make iVillage work.

Zalaznick said she was unsure of the exact problems NBC U has had with iVillage, but said that she plans to take a close look at the site now and figure out “new synergies that couldn’t have existed before.” NBC plans to unveil some kind of physical representation of “Women@NBCU” at its advertising presentation to advertisers in New York on May 12.

“Lauren brings a rare combination of creative energy and rigorous discipline to everything she does,” said Gaspin in a statement. “She turned Bravo into a top ten network for women 18-49 with the most affluent, educated, and engaged audience in all of cable entertainment. And she’s well on her way to working her same magic on Oxygen. She is uniquely qualified to lead iVillage and maximize the obvious synergies that exist between the website and our female-focused cable properties.”