ITV has taken a stake in Channel Mum, a YouTube network looking to make stars of British “mummy vloggers”.
The broadcaster has taken a minority stake in the fledgling venture which was launched by Siobhan Freegard, the co-founder of parenting website Netmums, in January.
Channel Mum, which runs with the strapline “the honest face of parenting”, aims to allow mothers to “share their real-life experiences of every aspect of motherhood”.
The multi-channel network, which has 10 vloggers signed up, has signed deals with companies including Pampers, although it has a YouTube subscriber base of just 2,140.
“Siobhan Freegard is a hugely successful entrepreneur with a proven track record in digital business,” said Simon Pitts, managing director of online, pay, interactive and technology at ITV. “She and her team at Channel Mum have a brilliant understanding of content, advertisers and mothers and how they can work together to produce genuinely appealing, authentic content.”
Pitts added that the latest investment follows a move to invest beyond TV production companies after taking strategic stakes in US video content companies Believe Entertainment, Indigenous Media and Zealot Networks.
Freegard left Netmums in 2014, having co-founded it in 2000, and sold it to French publisher Aufeminin Group in 2011 for an undisclosed sum.
