Full Length Shows Soon To Be Online for Free
For the Walt Disney Company, plans to make television shows available free online are a way to bolster revenue by selling two sets of advertising — TV commercials and online ads — for a single show.
For advertisers, the online offerings represent an opportunity to capture the attention of particularly Web-savvy consumers who do not have the luxury of fast-forwarding through the ads as they can on a digital video recorder.
Yesterday, Disney announced details of the plan. Beginning in May, the company will begin a two-month trial that will make four popular shows from its ABC network — “Desperate Housewives,” “Lost,” “Commander in Chief” and “Alias” — available for free viewing online the day after they are broadcast. The plan was first reported in The Wall Street Journal.
Unilever is among the advertisers that bought ads for the initial test run. Noreen Simmons, Unilever’s director of strategic media planning, said she expected that consumers who were watching shows in streaming video online would be more alert than if they were watching the same content on television.
“It’s going to be a different viewing experience,” Ms. Simmons said. “Rather than people sitting back in their chairs watching TV, this is going to be a lean-forward experience.”
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@uni said,
April 13, 2006 at 1:02 am
sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet
stix said,
April 13, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Wouldn’t that mean we would see episodes that haven’t aired in Australia yet.
johnsee said,
April 13, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Depending on how they do it I suppose. If they did it based on IP, your average aussie isn’t going to be able to sccess it. Some of us with our own server can just use it as a proxy though :D <3
stix said,
April 13, 2006 at 6:06 pm
lol yeah, but they bound to end up on some P2P network :D