Will TV ads get caught on the Net?
ATLANTA - Americans watch about 150 hours of television a month, including about 14 hours of commercials. As more TV shows move to the Internet, will viewers say enough is enough to all those ads?
Will they refuse to watch, for instance, as many commercials on an episode of TNT’s “The Closer’’ - about 20 - when the show airs a week later on the Internet?
Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting System, and its parent
TBS has tried limiting the number of commercials on “The Closer’’ to four or five, according to TBS chief research officer Jack Wakshlag, and now plans to go with a full load of 20 ads online. TBS vice chairman Andy Heller said in an e-mail last week the network is confident online viewers will embrace more ads.
“Our preference is to provide the consumer with more access to more content sooner than is generally available today as a reward for being a paying customer,’’ wrote Heller of cable subscribers who watch TBS shows on the Internet.
“We believe that in exchange for that the consumer is willing to watch a larger commercial load than many are doing today on the Internet just as they have demonstrated’’ in video-on-demand tests.
Atlanta-based
Cox has been distributing programs such as NBC’s “The Office’’ the day after they aired “live’’ on the network, and tracked viewers behavior and surveyed them afterward. The research showed viewers don’t seem to mind the same number of ads with video-on-demand as “live’’ TV.
For TV networks and programmers, the Internet is barely tapped as a way to distribute programs to viewers and generate millions in advertising revenues. Right now, Americans watch only about three hours of video a month on the Internet.
But the viewing audience, at sites like Hulu.com, is growing by the day. In September a record 168 million US Internet users watched online video, according to comScore, a company that tracks online traffic.
At the same time, Internet ad spending continues to grow, increasing by 10.6 percent last year, to $23.4 billion, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
But TV programmers may face resistance, over the long run, to TV commercials on the Internet, said Jared Hendler, who follows the industry as worldwide executive creative director for Edelman Digital, a division of the New York public relations firm.
“The mistake the entertainment industry is making with online environment is denying the fact that no one wants to watch a commercial if they do not have to,’’ he said. “Stopping to have to watch a commercial is simply archaic.’’
