Retirement Living TV, celebrating its first anniversary this week, claims to be the only cable network aimed at 55-plus viewers. After a year of expanding its self-proclaimed programming monopoly, the network plans to go 24⁄7 on Oct. 1.

RLTV, as it’s called, is carried in 28 million homes on DirecTV and Comcast and has produced more than 650 hours of original programming, according to company information. Last week, it signed on with AARP to produce programming from the AARP studio in Washington, D.C.

Created by seniors marketing specialist John Erickson, RLTV is the newest addition to his Erickson Retirement Communities LLC of Baltimore. The real estate and media company focuses on enhancing senior living, with revenues of $82 million last year.

In July, Erickson hired Hollywood producer and ex-Disney and Fox executive Charles Hirschhorn as the network’s new chief creative director. Hirschhorn will be responsible for all programming, production and marketing.

‘‘John has recognized that for the past quarter century, a huge demographic that developed in America in over-55 people,” Hirschhorn said. ‘‘I am naturally drawn to what I think are well-created television services that target a defined, growing audience.

Hirschhorn said his challenge would be to break the conventional media mindset, in which the 18- to 49-year-old demographic is king.

‘‘To grow the market share of 50-plus is challenging in terms of audience demographics and advertising revenues ... but the payoff is to engage this demographic that over the next 20 years is going to grow to more than 100 million Americans,” he said.

Programming includes ‘‘The Voice,” which highlights social issues; ‘‘Healthline,” which promotes the idea that good health goes hand-in-hand with enjoying life; a personal finance show, ‘‘The Prudent Advisor,” co-hosted by John Palmer and Lea Thompson; and ‘‘The Art of Living,” about ‘‘ordinary people from around the country who are living extraordinary lives doing what they love to do,” according to the company’s Web site.

Hirschhorn, who plans to split his time between Columbia and Hollywood, is no stranger to massaging demographics.

‘‘I was involved in the early days of the Fox Network,” he said. As vice president of development at Fox, Hirschhorn looked for programming for ‘‘a clearly defined younger, slightly urban audience,” he said. A statement from RLTV said Hirschhorn personally developed Fox’s Emmy-winning series ‘‘In Living Color.” He has also been a producer on a number of films, including hits such as ‘‘Bull Durham.”

Later, Hirschhorn conceived G4 Television, which programs for a generation of video game players, mostly ‘‘men from 12 to 34,” he said. He created the business model and secured $150 million in financing, leading to launching G4 in 2002 with 12 original series.

Experts: Are viewers ready?

Not everyone is as sanguine as Hirschhorn and Erickson about RLTV.

The network is ahead of its time — too far ahead, predicts Douglas Gomery, resident scholar at the Library of American Broadcasting at the University of Maryland.

‘‘It is too early,” Gomery said. ‘‘It will work in 10 years, but not now.”

The problem in sustaining programming on RLTV, he said, will be finding common interests of baby boomers that advertising will want to reach.

‘‘My opinion is that they won’t,” Gomery said.

There is already a lot of programming and advertising targeting that market, he said, citing TV Land, Turner Classic Movies, The Travel Channel and others. ‘‘The Price is Right” reaches older demographics and its commercials commonly sell senior scooters and Medicare help, he said.

‘‘The question is do they all have enough in common that advertising will want to reach them,” Gomery said. ‘‘I think they won’t.”

A colleague disagrees.

RLTV is an idea ‘‘whose time has definitely come,” said professor Lee Thornton, the university’s Eaton Chair in Broadcast Journalism.

‘‘The audience, mature people, is certainly there for it,” Thornton said. ‘‘Their problem is all TV programmers’ problem — stiff competition. The issue, as always, is can [viewers] find it in the cable universe and will they make it appointment television?”

Hirschhorn says yes, they will.

RLTV, he said, is committed to changing perceptions about aging by recognizing ‘‘that we live in a very youth-oriented culture, a very young celebrity-oriented culture.”

Many seniors are answering the call to national service as volunteers after their primary careers and RLTV will appeal to them and to people changing careers, Hirschhorn said.

‘‘So, I think in redefining, we want to look at the last few decades of one’s life as this unique opportunity to take the experience you have gained in the first part of your life and apply it to opportunities in the second half of your life.”

But Gomery, a student of media for more than 40 years, said television is not segregated by ages but by genres of content, such as movies, news, sports or nature channels.

‘‘It has never been demonstrated, not that I’m saying cartoons are not programmed for children,” he said. ‘‘But TV people have been looking for this huge market for about 10 years. It’s huge and rich but what do they have in common?”

The name Retirement TV is also a misnomer, according to Gomery. ‘‘They are pushing back into people who are not retired yet. But they are trying to realize advertising that has been neglected.” Gomery also noted that an AARP basic cable channel failed 10 years ago.

‘A reasonable concept’

More encouraging is Rick Edmonds, media business analyst at the Poynter Institute, who just turned 60.

‘‘It would depend a bit on what they have to offer. [RLTV] is a reasonable concept,” Edmonds said.

But he, too, questions the network’s name, because many products and services directed toward older people are ‘‘muted” in advertising with energetic and inspirational names, such as ‘‘active lifestyles” or ‘‘mature buyers.”

The ‘‘big issue” for RLTV, Edmonds said, could also be finding good space in cable offerings.

‘‘For most companies, they are pretty much filled. It is very competitive and [if a channel slips in ratings], say Comcast, it might decide to drop one to replace it with another. I would think that is issue No. 1,” he said.

RLTV, though, has built a safety net of famous hosts that it says appeal to an older audience. It has signed actors Florence Henderson, Gary Collins, Meshach Taylor and sex therapist Ruth Westheimer. Veteran journalists Walter Cronkite, Mary Alice Williams and Palmer have also signed with the network.

Asked to explain the network’s statement, ‘‘Retirement Living TV has brought credibility and vitality to seniors’ televisions,” Hirschhorn said, ‘‘Yeah, but I just think there is value to experience that is sometimes overlooked and we want to call attention to that.”