New, big-name personalities, expanded distribution nationwide and advertising contracts with major companies ? 2007 was a good first year for Retirement Living TV, its executives said.
This year, the Columbia-based cable network hopes to continue the success it?s found since its September 2006 launch, and it will air six new shows while continuing to push into new markets and seek new advertisers.
“It?s actually been growing fairly exponentially the last two months,” said Elliot Jacobson, vice president of programming. “There?s four deals on the table that have not closed yet that would see us expand to where we need to be. We feel we?re going to have the kind of national exposure we want.”
Locally, the channel airs with Comcast on CN8 and on DirectTV on Channel 222.
Jacobson said the channel will also add new shows, including an over-55 dating show hosted by Roger Lodge, an investigative journalism show and a lifestyle makeover show. While it began with information-heavy programming, the channel will now shift toward entertainment, he said.
The channel?s content has also been buoyed by veteran journalists and on-air talent. Among the channel?s contributors are legendary broadcaster Walter Cronkite, sex expert Dr. Ruth Westheimer, former CNN anchorwomen Bobbie Battista and Felicia Taylor, and John Palmer, who spent 40 years as a correspondent for NBC News.
“I was in CVS the other day, and a guy said, ?You?re John Palmer aren?t you?? ” Palmer said. “I figured he knew me from ?The Today Show? or something. He said, ?No, from Retirement Living TV.? I said, ?How old are you?? and he said, ?Thirty-seven. I was just flicking the dial and watched it and liked it.? ”
Retirement Living TV can take advantage of a large market for drug and 55-plus advertising, said Don Heider, associate dean at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. Jacobson said the channel has landed advertisers including Pfizer and Prudential.
“That wouldn?t surprise me that they?ve found a profitable niche,” Heider said. “[Now] they?re fighting to do what every cable launch is fighting to do, to get picked up by more systems. That?s the game.”
