Mother's Day Never Seems to End For Stations

You bought your mum the flowers yesterday and took her to brunch and all that, but if the love stations are showering on mothers is any indication, Mother’s Day never really ends. We have a story in the new issue about all the various mother-themed programs and websites in local TV, notably an ambitious initiative from Gray Television called Moms Every Day. [subscription required]

Jason Effinger, who’s spearheading Gray’s “Moms” initiative, says it’s already creating some real revenue for stations. Rolling it out at the Gray stations, Effinger says Moms should produce around $6.5 million for Gray this year–and many of the stations won’t have had it on place for more than a few months in 2011.

Participating stations sell sponsorships to local vendors, who in effect become “experts” on various topics on the local Moms site–and on-air inserts.

Gray’s earnings report this morning suggests some real growth potential for Moms, and the web in general. Gray anticipates second quarter web revenue to grow 50% in the second quarter. The first quarter saw online ad impressions increase 22% in the first quarter, and total page views, at 271 million for the quarter, increase 18% over the same quarter a year ago. Of course the bulk of that traffic comes from the Gray stations sites, not the Moms franchise. But it’s growing.

Other mother-centric outlets out there include Gannett’s Moms Like Me, Fox’s MyAtlantaMoms.com, and CBS syndie show The Talk.

And NBC Local Media’s Moms and the City, hatched on WNBC New York’s digital Nonstop channel, debuted on the Nonstop channels in California, Dallas and Miami this past weekend.

For the record, Father’s Day is June 19. Where’s the love for dad?