Random Culture

ABC Online TV a Success

The numbers are finally in, and ABC's free (ad-supported) online TV streaming was a huge success. In just one month, ABC had 11 million views of LOST, Desperate Housewives, Alias and Commander in Chief. Compare these numbers to ABC's experience with iTunes, where it took 9 months to get 6 million downloads. That's impressive, and shows a consumer willingness to view free content if it's ad-supported.

This also creates a new advertising channel for ABC, and they were testing that as well. According to the Reuters article on the subject:

"An online exit survey posted the first week of the
two-month trial showed that 87 percent of respondents could
recall the advertisers that sponsored the episodes they
watched."

You can bet ABC will be touting these numbers as it lines up advertisers for the relaunch of the effort during the fall. I'm still a little baffled about why they would shut this down over the summer. I guess they've got to do some thinking about how to spend all this extra money.

Link via JupiterResearch Analyst Joseph Laszlo.

ABC Online TV a Success

The numbers are finally in, and ABC's free (ad-supported) online TV streaming was a huge success. In just one month, ABC had 11 million views of LOST, Desperate Housewives, Alias and Commander in Chief. Compare these numbers to ABC's experience with iTunes, where it took 9 months to get 6 million downloads. That's impressive, and shows a consumer willingness to view free content if it's ad-supported.

This also creates a new advertising channel for ABC, and they were testing that as well. According to the Reuters article on the subject:

"An online exit survey posted the first week of the two-month trial showed that 87 percent of respondents could recall the advertisers that sponsored the episodes they watched."

You can bet ABC will be touting these numbers as it lines up advertisers for the relaunch of the effort during the fall. I'm still a little baffled about why they would shut this down over the summer. I guess they've got to do some thinking about how to spend all this extra money.

Link via JupiterResearch Analyst Joseph Laszlo.

CBS Launches Streaming Too!

Following the footsteps of ABC and AOL, CBS has launched "Innertube." The service offers streaming video for a number of shows, including The Late Show with David Letterman, The Amazing Race, CSI,  and much more.

So how does it stack up against ABC? Well, it quite frankly falls pretty short. The video is no where near as high quality as the ABC offering, and I had problems with the video being jerky. Now, this could be due to demand, or my connection, but I didn't have the same type of problems with ABC's streaming.

Also, CBS "Innertube" doesn't allow you to skip around, like ABC. Why? Because CBS is using Real Player and Windows Media Player. In Firefox, I was defaulted to Real Player automatically, and experienced issues with the pause button not working, as well as the video window being cropped down to an unusual size. Flash streaming, which ABC is using, is clearly the better option. And hey CBS, what happened to Quicktime?

There are streaming commercials in the programming. I saw multiple commercials during the break, which were standard TV spots. If you remember, ABC has taken the route of single sponsors for each show, with a single "interactive" ad during each break.

Overall, ABC clearly is winning this competition. I've been pretty critical about ABC not offering their shows as downloads, but the CBS "Innertube" offering puts it in perspective. Right on ABC!

Link via Jupiter Research Analyst Todd Chanko's Blog.

CBS Launches Streaming Too!

Following the footsteps of ABC and AOL, CBS has launched "Innertube." The service offers streaming video for a number of shows, including The Late Show with David Letterman, The Amazing Race, CSI,  and much more.

So how does it stack up against ABC? Well, it quite frankly falls pretty short. The video is no where near as high quality as the ABC offering, and I had problems with the video being jerky. Now, this could be due to demand, or my connection, but I didn't have the same type of problems with ABC's streaming.

Also, CBS "Innertube" doesn't allow you to skip around, like ABC. Why? Because CBS is using Real Player and Windows Media Player. In Firefox, I was defaulted to Real Player automatically, and experienced issues with the pause button not working, as well as the video window being cropped down to an unusual size. Flash streaming, which ABC is using, is clearly the better option. And hey CBS, what happened to Quicktime?

There are streaming commercials in the programming. I saw multiple commercials during the break, which were standard TV spots. If you remember, ABC has taken the route of single sponsors for each show, with a single "interactive" ad during each break.

Overall, ABC clearly is winning this competition. I've been pretty critical about ABC not offering their shows as downloads, but the CBS "Innertube" offering puts it in perspective. Right on ABC!

Link via Jupiter Research Analyst Todd Chanko's Blog.

First Live Webcast Ad?

The Financial Times will be the first publisher to carry a live webcast advertisement on their site. Today at 4pm and tomorrow at 11am in the technology section, Cisco will have a live webcast in a simple on-page advertisement, and users will be able to interact with the presenter through an instant messenger application built into the ad unit.

Link via Netimperative.

First Live Webcast Ad?

The Financial Times will be the first publisher to carry a live webcast advertisement on their site. Today at 4pm and tomorrow at 11am in the technology section, Cisco will have a live webcast in a simple on-page advertisement, and users will be able to interact with the presenter through an instant messenger application built into the ad unit.

Link via Netimperative.