Back After This Commercial Message
May 22, 2007

Figuring out how to make viewers watch commercials is the most pressing topic of discussion this spring between networks and advertisers as they negotiate television ad sales deals for the next year, according to the advertising column in Tuesday’s New York Times.

The newspaper reports that all networks are experimenting with ways to hold viewers’ attention during commercials in these days of digital recorders that allow viewers to skip commercials.

The answer apparently is to blur the line between content and the advertising message.

For instance, Logo, the lesbian and gay network, is currently showing a two-minute Subaru commercial that tells the story of a couple of women who like to take extreme athletic trips together. Only at the end of the ad does the Subaru logo appear.

In February, a Verizon Wireless ad ran during a live telecast of a concert on MTV. The Fall Out Boy concert served as the background throughout the commercial.

Media conglomerate Viacom, which owns cable networks like MTV, VH1, Comedy Central and Spike, has been the most specific on its action plan, the paper concludes. It plans to:
· create a single commercial that lasts for an entire break;
· integrate stars from programs into the ads;
· develop storylines that run through the ads;
· switch from two commercial break each half-hour to three shorter ones on MTV and VH1.

Ratings of how many people watch commercials during a program, on average, determine how much advertisers pay to buy television time. The Nielsen Co. will release those ratings at the end of May.

Posted by Michelle Krebs at 10:58 AM under Business | Comments (0) | digg this | Seed Newsvine