Friday, September 29, 2006
Greetings Blogger faithful. This week I found an article from USA Today that focuses on the promotions featured in ABC’s online episodes. In case you didn’t know, ABC now offers full online streaming versions of their prime time shows, including Lost, Desperate Housewives, and Grey’s Anatomy for free. That’s right, the girls at this university who religiously watch Grey’s Anatomy (which I’d say is most likely somewhere between 98-99%) can now go out on Thursday nights and watch their beloved drama on Friday afternoon without even exiting their Facebook and AIM windows.
The episodes are posted online the day after they originally air on ABC. As the article states, users have full control over the player (pause, rewind, fast forward) but they cannot skip through commercials. There are four ads inserted per episode that have the potential to reach a very enticing target market. But here’s the kicker; ABC reached an agreement for one of those four ads to be local. This is the first instance of local ads being placed in a national broadband player. National sponsors include Remax and Visa.
You have the details, but by now you are probably thinking to yourself, “John, this sounds great, but what about the best part of your weekly post? What’s your opinion on all of this?!” ABC’s entire plan is ingenious and marks the start of a revolution. Advertisers have a new medium to reach their potential customers. Viewers have the added convenience of watching their favorite shows any time they choose (anyone for some 2AM Lost?). We are in the midst of a huge shift. More and more content will be found on the Internet in the coming years and we should remember this as a milestone for what is to come.
That’s all for this week, so now it’s time to go catch up with my favorite suburban housewives (kidding – but I could if I wanted…)
- JJC Jr
The episodes are posted online the day after they originally air on ABC. As the article states, users have full control over the player (pause, rewind, fast forward) but they cannot skip through commercials. There are four ads inserted per episode that have the potential to reach a very enticing target market. But here’s the kicker; ABC reached an agreement for one of those four ads to be local. This is the first instance of local ads being placed in a national broadband player. National sponsors include Remax and Visa.You have the details, but by now you are probably thinking to yourself, “John, this sounds great, but what about the best part of your weekly post? What’s your opinion on all of this?!” ABC’s entire plan is ingenious and marks the start of a revolution. Advertisers have a new medium to reach their potential customers. Viewers have the added convenience of watching their favorite shows any time they choose (anyone for some 2AM Lost?). We are in the midst of a huge shift. More and more content will be found on the Internet in the coming years and we should remember this as a milestone for what is to come.
That’s all for this week, so now it’s time to go catch up with my favorite suburban housewives (kidding – but I could if I wanted…)
- JJC Jr
# posted by Unknown @ 7:48:00 PM 
