[opendtv] News: Ad Appeal Transforming VOD

<http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=nocclamp&articleid=&nid=2381>The following story is from a Multichannel News Newletter. It is supposed to be viewable at the following link that does not appear to work. 

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=nocclamp&articleid=&nid=2381

 Ad Appeal Transforming VOD
Advertising considerations are rapidly infiltrating cable's on-demand television ecosystem, influencing not just business models but the technology architectures and software applications that support the medium. The transformation represents what executives call a "retrofit" of on-demand television, which was developed almost entirely as a successor to cable's low-tech pay-per-view movie category and now is bending to the will - and the pocketbooks - of advertisers.
"It was originally invented as a replacement for pay-per-view with pause, rewind and fast-forward functionality," says Robert Ladd, corporate marketing director for Charter Communications Inc.
Now, he says with program types diversifying and advertising considerations rising, "It changes how the structure works."
The biggest change of all: reworking the behind-the-scenes systems for content delivery and insertion of commercials to allow for more fluidity in how and when commercials are stitched into video-on-demand content. MSOs including Comcast, Charter and the independent operator Sunflower Cablevision are working on trials that allow "dynamic" insertion of VOD ads instead of the prevailing and cumbersome approach of hard-splicing commercials into VOD programs. Dynamic insertion "is a really significant step in on demand's development and one of its major hurdles," says Ladd.
Making VOD advertiser-friendly also requires a vast rethinking of VOD infrastructure, touching attributes ranging from servers that pump out video, video encoding approaches, software that links cable facilities with ad-agency planning shops, and the overarching satellite distribution networks that beam content to local cable systems.
Behind the transformation is a strong economic impetus from advertisers intrigued by the emerging medium. "We're starting to see the beginning of an advertising model for on demand," says Page Thompson, SVP and GM of video services for Comcast. "Many programmers are now selling out their inventory of on-demand advertising. This is in its early stages but what you're seeing now is top advertisers asking about availability of on demand advertising in regular conversations with programmers."
Also under way: efforts to make it easier to track and report audience levels. "As we approach critical mass, we have to be able to rationalize advertising: How does it get inserted, tracked, what metrics are we reporting on; how are they aggregated, and what are the definitions for these things," says Bob Benya, SVP, on demand and interactive TV for Time Warner Cable. 


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