Welcome to GlibNews.

We are Gay & Lesbian Informational Broadcasting (GLIB), a global website for the lifestyle traveler. This website is designed for you the consummate traveler. Our goal is to share important travel news and enhance your travel experience.

Mission Statement

GlibNews Inc. mission is to provide the best in room video guide in North America, tailored to each individual lifestyle resort city and hotel, while providing a unique and target driven advertising opportunity to businesses that are dependent on the tourism dollar.

GlibNews Brings LGBT Messages
Into Hotel Rooms and Onto the Web.

November 4, 2005, Palm Springs, CA - When GlibNews launches its in-room video service this month, it will quite possibly become the first company ever to offer custom in-room LGBT destination programming and advertising to both mainstream and LGBT-focused hotels. The company, which is headquartered in Palm Springs, California, already has over 3,000 Palm Springs area hotel rooms committed to carrying the product, and hopes to have that number increased to over 4,000 by month’s end.

“We started with the LGBT-focused properties,” said Gene Pietragallo, Jr., company CEO, “because that’s where our market was. Our mission from the beginning has been to provide a service for their customers - gay and lesbian consumers visiting Palm Springs. But all of a sudden, we started getting requests from the mainstream boutique hotels, and even several of the larger hotels. I guess in retrospect, it shouldn’t have surprised me.”

Interest in the product from Palm Springs area hotels is not surprising. Hotels, both big and small, understand the impact the gay dollar has, not only on tourism in Palm Springs, but also on the overall economy. And indeed, Palm Springs is an ideal home base and starting point for Glib (which stands for Gay & Lesbian Informative Broadcasting, and includes not only the in-room video service, but also an LGBT news-focused website). The city is well-known throughout the world as a premier LGBT vacation destination.

“I feel really fortunate to live in Palm Springs,” Pietragallo continued. “We’ve got a wonderful, accepting, and amazing community, with a large and very visible LGBT community - both residents and visitors. There are no stereotypes in Palm Springs. Everybody accepts everybody at face value.”

But still, one wonders, how did Pietragallo get started with Glib? “Well,” he explains, “It was really a pretty natural progression. Over the years, lots of my friends who own LGBT resorts and/or small boutique hotels have expressed a desire to have some sort of in-room video option. But it’s always either been too expensive, and/or not targeted to the interests of their clientele. What we were able to put together with GlibNews, solved both those problems. Now we have the product, the medium, and we have the audience.”

Pietragallo intends to expand the Glib In-Room product to other markets, and begin promoting the website to LGBT consumers worldwide. “We really think the synergy of the two products will not only work for our advertisers, but also for our hotel partners and their customers, and ultimately for the destinations themselves.

Once we’re in multiple cities, each of our destinations will be able to cross-promote themselves, and our advertisers and hotel partners will have the ability to promote themselves on the website. Our video magazine format is both interesting and easily adaptable. As we add new cities, the template we’ve developed for Palm Springs will serve as the basis from which to build new city-specific programs, and as a resource for content.”

Unlike many of its mainstream competitors, Glib also offers custom destination content in its videos and on its website. “We’re not just all about advertising,” explains Glib Vice President of Communications, Mark Anderson. “We want to make sure our in-room product, and the website, can provide a good introduction to the destination itself. We plan to include pieces on permanent attractions and area information, and we plan to update the content with special features on local events. In the case of Palm Springs, we’ll include features on Greater Palm Springs PRIDE, the Dinah Shore Weekend, Jeffrey Sanker’s White Party, and a number of lesser known local events which are of interest to the LGBT community.”

Pietragallo thinks the future looks bright for Glib, both in terms of the in-room product, and the website. “The possibilities are really endless,” he says. “The big challenge for us is to keep our focus and make sure we grow in a controlled way. We have a specific business plan and we intend to stick to it. That’s the way we will succeed.”

If you don’t know GlibNews yet, you will.

GlibNews was founded in March of 2005 by Gene Pietragallo, Jr., to provide informative in-room video for gay and lesbian visitors to the Palm Springs area. This month, the channel launches in over 3000 area hotel rooms. Glib (which stands for Gay & Lesbian Informative Broadcasting) is the first company ever to offer custom, in-room LGBT focused destination programming and advertising.

GlibNews Vice President of Communications Mark Anderson describes the channel as a video magazine. “It’s a well rounded show intended to maintain our viewers’ interest. It includes both commercials and vignettes.” The commercials inform visitors about local businesses, restaurants and shops, and the vignettes focus on other things that attract visitors to Palm Springs—such as hiking the Indian Canyons, getting down at the White Party, watching movies at the International Film Festival, and celebrating cultural diversity at Greater Palm Springs Pride.

“The video is a loop, and it runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” says Anderson. “And it’s not like you turn on the TV and it starts at the beginning. It starts wherever the loop happens to be at that moment. That way everybody gets equal exposure.” Vignettes featuring local attractions will run about 45 seconds, and will change on a regular basis. “We’re constantly updating the show to keep the content fresh.”

GlibNews was initially intended to be broadcast only in gay hotels. CEO Pietragallo says, “Our mission from the beginning has been to provide a service for their customers—gay and lesbian consumers visiting Palm Springs. But a funny thing happened on the way to launching the channel: Mainstream hotels learned about GlibNews and wanted in. I guess in retrospect, it shouldn’t have surprised me,” says Pietragallo.

“We were approached by some of the flagship hotels saying, ‘We have a lot of gay guests, and we want to be involved.’” adds Anderson. “Which is a smart business decision.” He notes that gay and lesbian visitors spend over $50 million a year in Palm Springs. “It’s a dominant buying force in this city,” he says.

The 3000 rooms in which GlibNews makes its initial launch are split between 10 gay hotels and half a dozen mainstream venues. “And we have agreements, verbally, with several others,” says Anderson. “It is entirely possible that we will have over 4000 rooms committed by the end of this month.”

In addition to the in-room video, GlibNews is developing a comprehensive website, GlibNews.com, for the gay and lesbian traveler. “Up to now, we’ve been concentrating on marketing and sales,” says Anderson. “Hopefully within the month I’ll be dedicating a lot of time to the website.” (www.glibnews.com)

The bones of the website are already in place, and it’s clearly a winner. In addition to information about area hotels and restaurants, there is information on current events, local organizations, and the gay lifestyle in general. “We did some research,” says Anderson, “and discovered that with a lot of travel sites, especially gay and lesbian sites, the focus is on sex, and news is rarely offered. When news is offered, it’s far from current.  We want to make sure none of the news on our site is more than two weeks old.”

Although GlibNews is geared towards the Gay and Lesbian Traveler, anyone can find useful destination information and news on our website or video.”  In addition to the static information, visitors to the GlibNews site can view video similar to the video that streams in local hotel rooms.

GlibNews.com also gives visitors an opportunity to interact with GlibNews. “We have an area where folks can sign up for our monthly newsletter,” says Anderson. “And we have a Talk Back to Us section, which is a great tool not only for the traveler to tell us what they like and don’t like about GlibNews, but also to tell us where they stayed, where they went, what they did in Palm Springs, and to give us feedback on those places.” GlibNews can then share that feedback with the business or businesses in question.

One of the most exciting things about GlibNews, from a business standpoint, is its portability. In fact, the GlibNews team has plans to expand the in-room video into gay and lesbian travel markets around the globe, and to promote the website worldwide as a tool for gay and lesbian travelers. “Once we get Palm Springs established, we’re going to Laguna, then West Hollywood,” says Anderson, “followed by a total of 22 gay and lesbian destinations that we have targeted.”

“Once we’re in multiple cities, each of our destinations will be able to cross-promote themselves on the website,” Pietragallo says. “The template we’ve developed for Palm Springs will serve as the basis from which to build new city-specific programs.”

Another factor in the success of the company is the quality of its video. “We’re really proud of our production team,” says Anderson. “We operate a high end, digital, state-of-the-art camera. The only other company in town that has one like it is the local network affiliate. We also have a complete editing suite, which provides GlibNews with an extra measure of quality control.”

The level of production is so high, in fact, that local businesses are asking GlibNews to produce commercials not only for the in-room video, but also for broadcast television. “We have the capability of doing complete television shows,” says Anderson. “Infomercials, standard broadcast television commercials, graphics, you name it.”

Currently, the affable and handsome Anderson doubles as the GlibNews on-air personality. “It’s a new experience,” he says, noting his background is in marketing and communications. “I worked a lot with product development, consumer marketing and brand development.” He says his on-air work is “nerve-wracking, but very fun.”

The on-air segments are developed jointly by Anderson, Pietragallo, who has an extensive background in entertainment and broadcasting, and the production team. “We all work together on scripts,” says Anderson. “I rely a lot on Gene to make the videos work. I offer art direction, because it’s something I’m comfortable with, and our team is very receptive. I try to keep the look of the video, the website and the print material cohesive, to keep the branding consistent.”

One of the main goals of GlibNews is help the local economy solidify and grow. “We want to position ourselves as a company that helps build tourism in Palm Springs,” says Anderson. “We’re hoping we can work with the community and tourism to help unify the business community.” To that end, GlibNews is working with the Palm Springs Bureau of Tourism. “We’re one of the few for-profit businesses they have ever endorsed. Which is huge for us. We’re working hand-in-hand on promoting the city.”

Pietragallo feels the possibilities for GlibNews are endless. “The big challenge for us is to keep our focus and make sure we grow in a controlled way. That’s the way we will succeed,” he says. And if the early results are any indication, GlibNews is well on its way.