Press Room

Video-On-Demand Channel Targets Moms

Parenting startup Alpha Mom launches Alpha Mom TV, a 24-hour video-on-demand TV network distributed by Comcast and other cable operators. The channel will provide programming on health, nutrition, safety, and other childcare issues.

Programs will be reviewed by a professional advisory board, whose members include doctors, psychologists, and fitness instructors specializing in childhood development. Lifestyle content will cover topics such as maternity and infant fashions, fitness for moms and babies, nursery décor, and product spotlights.

Sponsorship opportunities include branded programming, billboard ads, and on air promotions and sweeps. The launch is supported by promostional partnerships with Loews Cineplex Entertainment and Macy’s. In April, Loews will host Alpha Mom events in its theaters as part of the pre-movie events in its “Reel Moms” series. On-air personalities from Alpha Mom will visit Reel Moms events to give lectures and seminars.

Macy’s will offer mini-seminars on topics such as maternal fitness and baby massage techniques in its stores in spring 2005. On-air personalities will conduct a multi-city tour of Macy’s West. Branded merchandise is also planned, including audio titles such as lullabies made from pop, rock, country, and new wave songs—scheduled for release in spring 2005. A video line offering extended versions of the networks signature shows is planned for summer 2005. Both will be distributed by Razor & Tie Direct. Further licensing and merchandising agreements are expected to be announced in early 2005.

By: Jennifer Gould Keil

Sleepless new parents will have a new partner when Alpha Mom TV, the first video-on-demand 24- hour parenting channel, launches in April.

The channel is the brain-child of new mom Isabel Kallman, an ex-Wall Street exec, and pal Vicky Germaise, an ex-record label marketing exec—who co-founded the company with an undisclosed amount of their own savings.

So far, the channel has lined up Loews Cineplex Entertainment, which will provide movie content from its "Reel Moms" program, where moms bring crying babies to the movies.

Alpha Mom will host the films at about 25 theatres with presentations that will also air on its channel, said a company spokeswoman.

The channel will be available to an estimated 10-million digital-cable subscribers across the country through a deal expected to be announced in a few weeks.

"Our voice is younger and hipper than anything out there," Germaise said.

"Our logo is red, black and white-- the antithesis of pink and blue."

The idea originated when Kallman, as a new mom, discovered the Internet was swamped with parenting material but there was nothing on television.

"Video on demand is the perfect medium because a mom can watch a segment that interests her at 3 p.m. or 3 a.m. instead of waiting through a TV show for her two-minute segment," Germaise said.

Kallman also realized that while there was a support community of new moms in Manhattan lucky enough to be able to meet each other and take innovative mommy-and-me classes, Women in rural areas or one-car families are often stuck at home and isolated from the parenting information and support they need.

Ads will sponsor 15-minute shows on such topics as baby and prenatal nutrition, childbirth education, health, safety-- as well as emotional issues related to traveling with infants and baby yoga.