Lime TV’s 24-hour channel, now in about 7 million homes (led by EchoStar Communications’ Dish Network and Comcast distribution), will go dark at the end of February as the Steve Case-owned media outlet focuses on broadband, cable video-on-demand and other distribution, CEO C.J. Kettler said Monday.
After Case bought the former Wisdom TV in 2005, the service was rebranded with a healthy lifestyle focus, but it hasn’t picked up many more cable or satellite homes. It had already been creating multiplatform content for such channels as mobile phones, satellite radio and broadband.
Lime launched a new broadband channel Monday, with several new advertisers -- including Toyota Motor Sales USA, Silk and Garnier -- and it added Yahoo and startup Joost as distributors on top of existing online outlets Google and AOL.
Lime has free-VOD content on Insight Communications, Mediacom Communications and some smaller cable firms, and it hopes to gain a foothold with larger cable operators either with free or subscription-VOD programming. “We’re not trying to walk away from the cable business at all. We care very deeply about the cable business,” Kettler said.
Lime said the broadband outlet will be organized by category such as Health, with nutrition series Living Well with Oz Garcia; Food, with nutrition-based cooking show Pure & Simple with Michel Nischan; Eco-Home, with Simply Green with Danny Seo; Planet, with Think Green,which explores environmental issues and ways to make a difference; and Balance, with health-and-wellness series Mind, Body & Soul.
