Affordable Luxury to Air on R&R TV

Fans of the TV travel program Affordable Luxury have just gotten lucky: In addition to being shown on the Discovery Channel, Discovery HD Theater, and Fox Sun Sports, the series is being shown on travel-oriented R&R TV as well, with brand-new and existing episodes. Affordable Luxury is produced by Bonnier Corporation's Caribbean Travel + Life and Florida Travel + Life, in two versions, one set of shows focusing on the Caribbean and one on Florida - naturally.

Under an agreement between R&R TV parent company Next One Interactive and Bonnier Corporation, in exchange for airing the programs R&R TV will promote the full-time network and its video-on-demand platform as well as its membership program using advertising space on Bonnier's Caribbean Travel + Life and Florida Travel + Life magazine websites.

"These shows are branded entertainment so rather than selling a concept to a network and giving that network ownership, we buy or barter the air time and maintain ownership and control of the content," says Michael Starobin, Vice President, Media Development at Bonnier Corporation. "The revenue is generated by selling multimedia sponsorships on various levels. There is a series sponsor, episode sponsors, and  segment sponsors. Each of these sponsors gets a defined level of exposure in the television program, in print pages and online."

Series sponsors include Travelocity, American Express and "Visit Florida." The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism, and many other official tourism and visitors bureaus are episode sponsors with brands such as Marriott, Hilton, and other fine resorts sponsoring segments.

In addition to the programming, the magazines will offer as a subscriber premium to their readers membership in the R&R Advantage program - a discount- and reward-based travel and lifestyle membership. "Through the use of the R&R platform we expect to extend our reach and deliver more value to our advertisers," says Starobin. "We also hope to earn revenue through the promotion of the R&R Advantage program."
 
The shows have had a broad viewership so far, says Starobin. "Each episode has aired about 10 times so we have had at least 110 displays on the combined networks," he says. "We estimate that 10 million viewers have seen the program."
 
There are currently 11 episodes of Affordable Luxury: seven Caribbean Travel + Life shows and four Floridal Travel + Life shows. There are 10 Florida Travel + Life and six Caribbean Travel + Life shows scheduled for production in 2011. This means 27 episodes by the end of 2011. The Caribbean episodes will cover Barbados, Aruba, Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Cayman and St Lucia. The Florida episodes will cover Daytona Beach, North West Florida, Miami and the Beaches and Bradenton.