TV Maven: "In the Loop with iVillage"--Bye-bye, Brainless Talker

 

Here’s good news: NBC’s so-bad-it’s-sometimes-funny daytime talker, In the Loop with iVillage, is getting the axe at the end of March. The hourlong Web-interactive show airs live on NBC-owned and operated stations, beamed out from WMAQ-TV’s Chicago studio at noon ET weekdays. It’s hosted by comic actress Kim Coles and Apprentice alums Bill Rancic and Ereka Vetrini.

 

To see just how amateurish In the Loop looks, take a peek at this clip and wonder why Rancic is dressed like Annie Hall. Or where Coles got that wormy weave. Or why Vetrini is there at all.

 

Remember “Morning Latte,” the SNL sketch with Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri as the over-caffeinated halfwit hosts of a bad local morning show? iVillage is like that. But for real. Every day.

 

As the guest lineup has slipped from B-list names promoting movies and cooking shows, to whatever D-listers are out on bail, iVillage has taken on a tone of nervous desperation not seen on daytime TV since Kathie Lee Gifford’s last days with Regis. Under lighting that makes everyone look jaundiced and sleep-deprived, the trio of twits on iVillage pepper whoever sits on their couch with insipid questions that betray not only their own ignorance on almost every topic, but that of the producers. Watch how they insulted Madeleine Albright by making her play a “word association” game with Kim Coles.

 

iVillage Live (as it was called when it debuted in 2006) was designed to blend live TV with the Internet. Viewers could log on and send in questions or comments during the show or watch it streamed live on the Web—a bit of technological gimmickry that might have been cutting edge around 1995.

 

A visit to the show’s Web site during a telecast reveals streams of typed-in chatter about how awful the hosts are, how bad the show looks and not a few lively arguments about whether the catatonic studio audience (glimpsed only rarely on-camera) has been bused in from Chicago-area nursing homes or are, in fact, homeless people grateful to be in a warm place for an hour.

 

A relocation from Orlando’s Universal Studios theme park (where noise from a nearby roller coaster often drowned out the host chat) to Chicago was supposed to beef up the ratings and improve the guest roster, but word seemed to get around quickly among publicists that it was an iVillage of the damned. Just being on it could serve as evidence that a career was in a downward spiral.

 

It’s certainly done that for Rancic, Vetrini and Coles.

 

Hucksterism was another obvious problem on In the Loop with iVillage. Advertisers’ names and products were all over the chat topics and in-studio demos (which often went amusingly awry). Look, stay-at-home moms and shut-ins will watch almost anything at that hour of the day, but even they're alert enough to sniff the snake oil.

 

NBC spent $600 milion acquiring iVillage, at one time the largest women-oriented Web site. Another $935 million was went to buy Oh!, the former Oprah-owned and femme-centric Oxygen channel.

 

And this show was the best idea they could come up with for “synergy” of those expensive properties?

 

Ratings for competing midday shows such as Maury Povich, Montel Williams and Young & Restless (depending on the market) ran circles around the sagging In the Loop.

 

This was a show that went off the rails soon after it started. The move to Chicago only made it a costlier train wreck.

 

Spending $1.5 billion to chase women viewers tells us what NBC Universal wants in daytime. Now if they’d only ask women what they want—and it’s not a fifth watery hour of Today Show—maybe the network could get back on track.