‘Women want a lot more information that is relevant to their lives,’ says Barbara Barde, vice-president programming at Lifestyle Television. And that, she says, will be the primary consideration behind programming decisions for the new specialty service aimed primarily at women.

Lifestyle Television, owned by Winnipeg-based Moffat Communications, intends to deliver 70% informational programming. Barde says focus group research conducted during Lifestyle’s gestation period showed ‘women’s information needs were not currently being met by existing television services, and that women, in fact, got their primary information from other media sources.’

‘So all the major independent production that we do will be targeted at providing that kind of information.’

Among the programs outlined by Lifestyle under the heading Canadian Independent Production – Signature Services is a weekly morning strand entitled Info Power. This series is made up of six program subsets addressing particular areas of interest to women: Monday, Time of Your Life (for the over 45s) and What Every Baby Knows (for new parents); Tuesday, diy (Do-It-Yourself – home maintenance); Wednesday, Body Talk (health and lifestyle); Thursday, Getaway (travel); and Friday, Money Talks (financial).

Another important slot will be Sharing the Wisdom, a series to be aired twice daily in prime morning and evening slots. Here programming has been broken down into four areas – math and science, history, biology, and business – with each subject area explored on a designated day, Mondays through Thursdays.

‘We did not follow a traditional rotation wheel for programming,’ says Barde. ‘What we have tried to do in putting the schedule together is to look at what kinds of women are available to watch certain kinds of programming at different times of the day. Our highest repeat factor will be with our original programming.’

She says Lifestyle is in the process of lining up producers for some of the Signature Services.

‘My goal for putting money into independent production,’ says Barde, ‘is to increase the amount of production being done by women across the country. In some cases, if a woman comes to us with a great idea and we don’t feel she has enough experience to do it alone, then we will work to find someone to mentor her through the process.’

Other programs outlined include:

– Call Us – a phone-in/fax-in show to be produced out of Winnipeg by Phyllis Laing of Winter Rodes Production;

– Lunch WithÉ – viewers eavesdrop on an incredible conversation with an interesting woman, to be produced by Bev Bliss under the mentorship of Clark Donnelly in Regina;

– A Loonie’s Worth of Advice – nightly profiles of up-and-coming female stand-up comedians to be done from different cities across the country;

– Birds Eye View – an informative yet irreverent weekly look at how women’s issues are faring on Parliament Hill, to be produced by a company out of Ottawa.

– Shameless Shorts – two half-hours of independent short films and videos, including animation and experimental. Lifestyle is now accepting reels;

– Tune The Picture – an examination of the treatment of women in the various media;

– Two documentary slots using acquired programming – Hot Topics, related to women’s issues, and The Hour Is About Women, stories told from a woman’s perspective;

– Girl Talk – 40 teenage girls from across the country will be given Hi-8 cameras to present their vision of the world on various themes.

Sitcoms and primetime dramas will all have either a female protagonist or will be driven equally by female and male characters. Note: female victim films need not apply.

Movie slots will combine ‘girl movies’ with profiles of female directors.

Barde says with a commitment of $10 million per year to Canadian product, Lifestyle will be the second highest spender on original programming of all the new specialty channels. Barde pegs information programming licence fees at $5,000 to $15,000 per half-hour. No specific deals have yet been signed with producers.

‘We’re also very interested in pursuing relationships with other broadcasters,’ says Barde. ‘We recognize that our audience will be very different from other broadcasters’, be it ctv or Newsworld. I think we could get together and share windows for production.’

The new channel, based in Winnipeg, has yet to announce any staffing decisions. ‘We plan to hire people on a short-term basis to get us through the launch till we decide exactly who we need for the long haul,’ says Barde.

Although a detailed promotional strategy has not been finalized, Barde says $1.2 million has been targeted for the launch, which will include cross-promotion through women’s magazines that could take the form of joint ventures in some cases.

One of the most important things Lifestyle wants to ensure, Barde says, ‘is that this channel doesn’t look like any other. We want it to have a completely different look. Women don’t talk in studios, they talk around a table in a more intimate setting. We want to achieve that intimacy level, so we will also have women hosting the channel. We found in our research a lot of women use tv as a companion and have tv on all the time. We want to create a whole different interaction with the tv on our channel.’