ABC.com Talks Of Experimenting With More Ads Per TV Stream

May 2, 2008

Television networks have been sending original broadcast content to computer screens for many, many months now. Everyone from ABC to NBC to Fox to CBS are all in the business of grabbing as many advertising dollars as possible to make sure they don’t lose out on potential financial returns.

But they seem to only have garnered reasonably large audiences with their respective Web-based projects for the fact that they haven’t annoyed online viewers with a substantial number of spots. At present, most broadcasters routinely present video consumers with one advertisement per break, stretching from 15- to 30-seconds, two or more times per television episode. This seems a reasonable compromise for most. If you’re watching The Office or Family Guy on Hulu, say, and you’re asked to sit through two brief marketer spots, it’s not dreadful. Compared to traditional television, it’s a far better deal, no?

Sure. But ABC doesn’t appear pleased enough with that arrangement. According to Andrew Wallenstein of The Hollywood Reporter, the network is considering the placement of two advertisements, one after the other, within each video break on ABC.com. Indeed, rather than maintain the industry standard, which emphasizes “limited commercials” it may experiment with a two-fold advertising increase within its archive of episodic television on the Web. Albert Cheng, executive vice president of digital media for Disney-ABC Television Group, was quoted as saying: “It would be premature for us to say people only want one ad. It’s a likely sort of thinking (that viewers would want only one ad), but we want to push it a little bit to see how it would go.” According to the news report on the matter, DATG will commence research next week on the multiple-advertisement proposal.

ABC of course leaves a window open to reverse its efforts. Mr Cheng explained that “if research shows that users don’t want more ads per break, Disney won’t pursue the strategy.”

© Paul Glazowski for Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog, 2008. |
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