Despite an active-lifestyle movement among older citizens, Retirement Living Television is hoping that a few stop to turn on the television.
Featuring specifically filmed programming for people 55 and over, the Retirement Living Televisionis the latest attempt by Erickson Retirement Communities to reach the rapidly aging baby boomer generation. Teaming up with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Retirement Living Television uses a $1.3 million refurbished television studio on campus to film programming that is beamed to about 25 million homes five days a week.
“There are five shows filmed on the UMBC campus,” said Elliot Jacobson, vice president of programming and production for Retirement Living Television. “We are hoping that with so much filming at UMBC, we can create a media and film program.”
The relationship between UMBC and Retirement Living Television was created by John Erickson, the founder and chief executive officer of Erickson Retirement Communities. Erickson Foundation has donated more than $5 million dollars to UMBC, which helped to establish the Erickson School of Aging Studies at the university. A $20 million production and technology building is on schedule to be completed next year.
“The center will be full of information technology,” said Chip Rose, assistant director of media relations at UMBC. “And we are excited about using back-and-forth collaboration with [Erickson], faculty and students, using some of that [facility] for teaching space.”
For distribution of a lineup that features 10 original shows, Retirement Living Television has worked with both the CN8, a subsidiary of Comcast and the DirecTV Group Inc.
Cindy Hamilton, a spokeswoman for CN8, declined to comment on the terms of the agreement with Retirement Living Television, but acknowledged that the current deal runs through Dec. of 2007, adding that “our viewers enjoy Retirement Living?s high-quality programming that is well targeted to a mature audience.”
