
ESPN aims for female audience with espnW.
Selling ESPN specifically to women might not seem sensible.
But ESPN, always on the prowl for spinoffs, wants to target women with espnW.
As ESPN vice president Laura Gentile notes, ESPN's own research finds "women see us as an admirable brand that has authority. But they see us as their father's brand, or husband's brand, or boyfriend's brand. They recognize it's not theirs"
No wonder. Men account for 76% of ESPN's overall viewership. And just two types of programming it produces draws majority-female audiences: The National Spelling Bee on ABC (63% female) and cheerleading shows on ESPN2 (52%) — with ESPN2's Wimbledon coverage in third place with 48%.
http://espn.go.com/espnw/
The network plans to make espnW a new sub-brand that will soon begin as a blog and could end up being its own TV channel. Says Gentile: "I think espnW-branded programming is in the cards, but I can't say whether we'll make it into a network."
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