Motherly Love
Warner Bros. launches MomLogic Website
By Paige Albiniak -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/18/2007 7:00:00 PM
In its latest effort to meld Web and TV content—and make some money in the process—Warner Bros. Television Group last week unveiled its new mom-focused portal, MomLogic.com. The site will provide content ranging from news and original scripted Web series to how-to info and user-contributed material, all targeted at mothers.
“This is not a parenting site, but rather a site for women who are moms,” says Hilary Estey McLoughlin, president of Telepictures Productions. “Motherhood changes your perspective on everything overnight, and we will present the mom's point of view on a full range of subjects from news, health and beauty, to shopping—as well as parenting—at this destination.”
Warner Bros. is increasingly focusing on the Web, developing sites such as TMZ.com, which it then turned into a full-blown syndicated television program. Warner Bros. says it has no specific plans to develop MomLogic into a TV show—as NBC Universal has done, without much success so far, with In the Loop With iVillage. But Sony hopes to pull off the same synergy with The 9 on Yahoo TV, and Debmar-Mercury is attempting it with Tom Green's late-night vehicle.
“With the success of TMZ and particularly with our expertise and knowledge of this demographic, we feel like this is a natural progression in terms of us going into the digital space,” says McLoughlin.
Many syndicators think it makes sense to let a show develop its content, brand and audience online before bringing it to TV. Online development is less expensive and a safer bet than just bringing a show to market with only a presentation tape. Online metrics are easy to gather, letting producers know on a daily basis how well their show is doing and who is watching it.
“You get a higher rate of success when you've incubated a show somewhere else,” says one syndication executive.
Warner Bros. launched Studio 2.0 for programming, which will take advantage of new platforms. Studio 2.0 is one of MomLogic's first contributors. For example, the site features The Jeannie Tate Show, a Web series about a neurotic soccer mom who hosts a talk show from her minivan.
MomLogic.com is about seeing the world through the “Mom lens,” one executive says.
“Whether a woman is a working mom, stay-at-home mom, a new mom or a mom of older kids, what they all have in common is that they have so much to do,” adds Lisa Hackner, Telepictures' executive vice president of creative affairs. “We hope to provide them with a service by editing down all this information and content and putting it in one place.”
Last month, NBC Universal announced plans to buy the women's cable network Oxygen for $925 million and market it as a “virtual women's network” alongside iVillage, the female-focused online community NBCU acquired last year for $600 million. Two weeks ago, Lifetime Networks launched its re-branded myLifetime.com Website, and has made several new online partnerships and content deals. The network recently partnered with Glam Media, the biggest aggregator of female-focused Websites, to grow its ad base.
MomLogic is in beta, but it already has an ad network in place, complete with other related partner sites that Warner Bros. has recruited, such as The Coupon Mom and Kidproof USA.
Unilever, giant consumer goods maker of products such as Dove and Suave, is MomLogic's launch sponsor. “We have a lot of brands that are interesting in being part of this,” says Jon Stimmel, Unilever's director of media buying. “What we've seen to be most powerful is the social community we can get by tying our brands to consumer groups. It's more authentic and it's way more powerful for our brands to be connected with people giving advice amongst each other than for us to tell people how to use our brands.”
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