CAPABILITIESCASE STUDIESOUR TEAMVISION & VALUESCAREERSNEWS & BLOGINQUIRE
 		 
RL.TV LAUNCH
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CAPABILITIES ENGAGED IN THIS CASE
Management Consulting
Health Information Systems
Web & Analytical Marketing
Software Development
Erickson Retirement Communities launched Retirement Living TV in September 2006 with the goal of delivering programming targeted at active adults aged 55 and older—a demographic that, in ERC's view, was underserved by existing media offerings. ERC is uniquely suited to RLTV.jpgdevelop such programming, with over 18,000 seniors across the country calling an Erickson community home.

Today, less than a year later, RLTV reaches over 26 million households across the United States.

Audacious Inquiry was tasked with developing and implementing the business plan for RL.tv, the television network's online offering, as well as the IT infrastructure for the network. The initial goal was simple: to establish RLTV's reputation as the leading authority on subjects of aging by developing a portal that was informative, useful, and simple to navigate. The plan called for the site to be the most popular destination for seniors on the web by 2008. Furthermore, the site would be cash flow neutral (in other words, the revenue would equal hosting and maintenance costs) via a combination of advertising and premium subscription revenues by the same date.

Audacious Inquiry developed a three-pronged strategy to launch RL.tv:
  • First, build and acquire breadth and depth of content that is informative and/or useful for a senior audience,
  • Quickly establish a presence in many subject areas of interest to older Americans,
  • And overall, act as a consolidator—the hypothesis being that a large portal and prominent brand will be more valuable than any collection of small sites.
Audacious Inquiry began its initial marketing campaign for the beta version of RL.tv at the time of the television network's launch, and quickly grew traffic to nearly 100,000 unique page views per month by April 2007. At that time, the team rolled out the new RL.tv, a robust interactive platform which can continue to scale with its growing range of content initiatives. The total development cost to date came in at under $400,000, thanks to efficient execution by teams on two continents.

In May 2007, only nine months since RLTV first hit the airwaves, the underlying RL.tv asset became more valuable than the cost of developing and operating the site, as measured by a range of valuation metrics.

The business's growth continues to track according to plan. Audacious Inquiry is pursuing a number of e-commerce and content initiatives—including a housing guide targeted at older Americans and a senior healthcare offering—that will increase the site's footprint dramatically.