TV Commercials Move Beyond the Box

When CBS television writers and producers sat down this spring to think about "Jericho," a new program for this fall, they crafted two story lines: one that would appear on television and one that would appear -- and fish for ad dollars -- only on the Internet.

CBS calls the second one the "D" story line, for digital. It will involve the characters and premise of the show but will consist of original content available only on the company's expanded Web site and on cellphones, where advertisers search for younger, harder-to-reach consumers.

For half a century, the 30-second commercial spot was the template for television advertising, a one-size-fits-all solution that networks offered everyone from soapmakers to car companies -- take it or leave it. They still pack a punch -- for launching blockbuster movies, for instance -- but now that networks face increasing competition for ad dollars from the Internet and the wandering attention of viewers, the 30-second spot is only one ingredient in a cocktail of options that networks are mixing for advertisers.

The new advertising choices also affect what viewers see on television and the Internet, as networks are creating extra programming tailored for advertisers. Fans of ABC's hit drama "Lost," for instance, are exploring additional original content that is nowhere to be seen on TV on the show's many Web sites.

Last week, as thousands of television network executives, media buyers, agents and advertisers gathered in New York for the annual "upfronts" -- when networks roll out their fall program lineups and try to sell the commercial spots contained therein -- digital buzzwords such as "extension," "engagement" and "Internet iterations" flew about.

"The Internet is everywhere this week," said Julie Henderson, senior vice president of corporate communications for Fox Interactive Media, the online arm of the Fox television network.

In many ways, the powerful networks are like a kid with a new train set, trying to figure out how to set it up and seeing if it will run. "It's a new world," said Jo Ann Ross, president of advertising sales at CBS. "There's a lot of experimenting." CBS is pitching its many digital platforms to advertisers, Ross said, as advertisers try to figure out which ones are best for them.

The networks are entering the online content and advertising space as never before now that 17 percent of all households -- and most workplaces -- are equipped with high-speed Internet access. The fast pipeline largely ends the frustration of trying to watch video online that plagued the Web's dial-up days and kept the networks out of the early Internet boom.

Combine a speedier Web with the rollout of numerous portable devices -- Apple's video iPod, Sony's PSP handheld video device -- and it's now possible and increasingly enjoyable to watch television shows on something other than TV.

That means a new frontier for advertisers -- car companies, beermakers, movie studios and so on -- and an ability for them to laser in on target audiences with "much more demographic distinction than television advertising" can, said ad buyer John Rash of Minneapolis's Campbell Mithun.

"The transcendent theme to this year's upfronts is content being put on multimedia platforms," Rash said.

For example, the hardest television viewers to reach are the 18- to 34-year-old, which is why shows that cater to them, such as Fox's "American Idol" and ABC's "Grey's Anatomy," draw the highest ad rates, as much as $2 million per 30-second slot for the finales of some popular shows, such as "Friends."