New York, NY, February 14, 2007 - Millions of women have turned to iVillage to be part of a community that offers guidance through all of life's stages, including finding true love, becoming pregnant and raising children. Through an alliance announced today with the nation's leading wedding resource The Knot, iVillage, a division of NBC Universal, will close the loop on another life stage, by adding Weddings to the line-up of lifestyle channels on its site.
The wedding industry has reached $72 billion. Over 1 million brides are expected to plan their weddings this year using the Internet as a resource, in addition to the dozens of friends and family members - from bridesmaids to distant relatives - involved in the planning and process of each one. Through this relationship, iVillage and The Knot will cater to these figures with shared content, programming and ecommerce, including a co-branded version of The Knot wedding shop, which will live on iVillage.com.
As part of the agreement, The Knot will provide content for a new channel on iVillage.com called Weddings, which will include co-branded versions of the site's most popular interactive tools such as the Wedding Checklist, Wedding Budgeter, and Wedding Gown tools, as well as wedding-specific video segments on iVillage.com. Scheduled to launch in the second quarter of 2007, Weddings will become the ninth channel on iVillage.com, joining Health, Wellness, Diet & Fitness, Pregnancy & Parenting, Beauty & Style, Entertainment, Love & Sex, and Home & Food. iVillage will provide The Knot with a selection of weekly features from its other lifestyle channels.
"We support women through a spectrum of life stages, from dating to fertility, pregnancy and parenting, health and home, and we're thrilled to be able to support them through the exciting milestone of marriage as well," said Deborah Fine, President of iVillage. "There is no better partner for us in the wedding space than The Knot and the result will be the most comprehensive bridal offering, including engagement, wedding and honeymoon content and tools."
iVillage's new Weddings Channel will allow the brand, already home to 16 million women who use the site as their resource for life's other major milestones, to capture women at a critical and influential life stage. "There's an opportunity for these young women to grow with us and continue to look to iVillage to meet their ever-changing needs," said Fine.
"As always, our strategy has been to align ourselves with best-in-class partners," said David Liu, CEO of The Knot. "Our goal remains to be the ubiquitous bridal brand providing services and resources everywhere that women are looking for wedding-related information. We are thrilled with our relationship with iVillage, which allows us to extend our brand to their audience of loyal members who seek to obtain the best information and resources needed to plan the wedding of their dreams."
iVillage Inc., a division of NBC Universal, is the first and largest media company dedicated exclusively to connecting women at every stage of their lives. Ranked the #1 online destination for women with 16 million unique visitors (comScore MediaMetrix), iVillage.com offers an authentic community infused with compelling content from experts on health, parenting, pregnancy, beauty, style, fitness, relationships, food and entertainment. The site's interactive features include thousands of message boards and a wide variety of social networking tools, allowing women around the world to connect, share ideas, and seek advice and support about everything from fertility to fashion.
Established in 1995, iVillage's brand extensions include iVillage UK, iVillage Total Health and owned sites Astrology.com, GardenWeb and gURL.com, in addition to the Newborn Channel. The company, acquired by NBC Universal in May 2006, is based in New York.
About The Knot
The Knot, Inc. (Nasdaq: KNOT) is a leading lifestage media company. The Company's flagship brand, The Knot, is the nation's leading wedding resource reaching over 1 million engaged couples each year through the Web, newsstands, bookstores, national television and more. Its award-winning website, TheKnot.com, is the most-trafficked online wedding destination generating over 100 million monthly pageviews. The Company also offers national and regional editions of "The Knot Weddings" magazine, seven books, a Video On Demand (VOD) service for Comcast Cable and content distribution partnerships with MSN and Comcast. The Company's portfolio of lifestage brands also includes newlywed resource The Nest, teen site PromSpot.com, and personals site, GreatBoyfriends.com. The Knot, Inc. is based in New York.
