Consolidating the Outdoors

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Outdoor Channel Holdings, which already owned the Outdoor Channel cable network, has acquired MyOutdoorTV.com, an online video site. As the name suggests, it also focuses on the outdoor lifestyle.


Launched in 2006, MyOutdoorTV.com offers a variety of long form programming in the hunting, shooting, fishing and conservation categories produced by legendary outdoor personalities, such as Bill Dance. It also features short form content, including more than 400 “how to” and gear reviews along with educational and wildlife refuge videos through its partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and over 35 state agencies. MyOutdoorTV has included Ford, Sprint, Cabela’s, Evinrude, U.S. Army, and Arctic Cat among its advertisers. In 2009, its top performing year, MyOutdoorTV garnered a total of 1.4 million unique visits and 7.7 million page views.
 
“MyOutdoorTV is a well-recognized player in the digital outdoor space, and as a leading multiplatform provider of content for outdoor enthusiasts, adding MyOutdoorTV to Outdoor Channel’s portfolio aggressively expands our digital footprint while also strengthening our online content library,” said Outdoor channel COO Tom Hornish. “This acquisition combines two powerful outdoor content sites and continues our strategy of maximizing the ongoing appeal of the Outdoor Channel brand, celebrity power and our high quality cross platform programming for our viewers, producers and advertisers,” he added.

“Bringing MyOutdoorTV and its nearly 3,000 hours of video into the Outdoor Channel digital network gives us the size and scale to build further on our leadership position as the number one outdoor site among all outdoor media brands across multiple screens. This will give our advertising partners another popular online destination within our premier network of web sites,” said Todd Merkow, President of Digital Media, Outdoor Channel.

OutdoorChannel.com serves as the anchor property in Outdoor Channel’s digital network – a digital network that, according to comScore, attracted a total of 13 million unique visits, 73 million page views and 21 million visitors in 2010. MyOutdoorTV joins Outdoor Channel’s group of Web sites, including OutdoorChannel.com, Downrange.tv, Cascity.com, Lake-link.com and OutdoorChannelOutfitters.com.
 
Chris Moise, former Founder and CEO and Dave Barton, Director of Programming at MyOutdoorTV have been working with the Outdoor Channel’s digital team to aid with content acquisition and online partnerships. They will now be heavily focused on continuing the growth of MyOutdoorTV, the acquisition announcement stated.