Written by Jackson West
Posted Thursday, January 11, 2007 at 2:44 PM PT

Where to Find Primetime TV Online

Emily Steel at the Wall Street Journal spoke to some network execs about the prime-time hits they’re now offering online. She reports back we should expect more shows moving online, and more shows produced exclusively for the web. Also on the way are “more interactive components, like blogs and games.”

Why are they doing it at all? You can thank PVRs, in part — the networks wanted a way to keep people from skipping through the ads. And in a web-player, there’s no reason an ad can’t run alongside the player the whole time. According to the article, viewer statistics and revenue are still small, but growing.

Personally, I’m a big fan of the watching TV online, and put up with the ads because it’s more convenient than waiting for a torrent to download. In fact, I was just chatting with an old friend and fellow Heroes fan who pointed out that it probably helped the show in the long run because people new to the series could catch up on the story.

It’s as though the networks have finally figured out that it’s their job to keep us happy, not the other way around!

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Topic: Networks & Studios

Comments (2)

How very nice for those of you living in the United States. As for the rest of us, see http://www.beginningwithi.com/tech/ideal_tv.htm

Deirdré Straughan — 1:48 AM on January 12, 2007 Reply
OK, so how do I make the ABC site think that I’m coming from a US IP address rather than an Aussie one?

JodieM — 10:28 PM on January 18, 2007 Reply

Linkbacks (4)

[…] Where to Find Primetime TV Online NewTeeVee.com posted a quick article on Where to Find Primetime TV Online. This contains a list of the major networks and which shows they publish online for free viewing. You’re not going to be able to download these, but you can certainly watch them online (and suffer their commercials). Explore posts in the same categories: Shows […]

Where to Find Primetime TV Online «… — 5:05 PM on January 11, 2007
[…] Where to Find Primetime TV Online: ” […]

Where to Find Primetime TV Online (NewTeeVee… — 10:40 AM on January 12, 2007
[…] At the same time, online video revenue is expected to grow to $900 million by 2010 from $200 million in 2006. User-generated video, mostly supported by advertising, is expected to account for just 15 percent of this revenue. That’s a pretty conservative estimate, but it makes sense given the increasing availability of professional content online. […]

NewTeeVee » User-Generated Video Growth… — 12:01 PM on January 15, 2007
[…] It’s not the kind of news that is going to help Chris Anderson sell books, but it does make sense: Big TV shows from the big networks are piling up big online viewer numbers, which at some point could become a big business. […]

NewTeeVee » Big TV Shows = Big Online… — 1:42 PM on January 18, 2007