The CEO of Hulu said that Internet video ads should be short, in order to be effective. Hulu is that new online video venture by NBC and News Corp. that’s trying to take on iTunes and YouTube by bringing TV content to the web.

Speaking at a keynote presentation at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s last week, Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu said that advertisers shouldn’t re-purpose the same 30-second TV spots on the Internet.

This isn’t new. I think most new media advertisers know that online video ads should be kept short. I mean, most Internet video content is short (about 2.6 minutes) so it makes sense to have even shorter video ads.

Hulu, of course is going for longer content–30 minute sitcoms and hour-long dramas, for example. So it’s a different universe than what YouTube is working with.

Plus Hulu is still trying to get their advertising and revenue opportunities nailed down while still in beta. Currently, Hulu is testing overlay advertising and short video ads running one ad during a natural commercial break. That’s in line with what other content providers, like ABC.com and NBC.com are already doing with their TV shows online.

Interestingly, Kilar said that Hulu isn’t competing with YouTube, since they’re not doing user-generated content. However, YouTube isnt’ all user-generated content. Just last week HBO announced it was putting up entire episodes of its new series, In Treatment, on YouTube for free. Anyone can go on and watch the first five or so episodes of the show or catch up to missed episodes, even if they aren’t HBO subscribers.

It seems like Hollywood is finally getting it. Put your content on the web or people will get it illegally via BitTorrent. They are fully experimenting with this new delivery model: put your content on the Internet, get audiences however you can and see what happens.

Technorati Tags: HBO, In Treatment, Hulu, Internet video, YouTube, advertising, TV on the Internet

According to a survey from BIGresearch, people often multi-task during commercial TV breaks.

Channel surfing is the the most popular activity during TV commercials with 41.2% doing so followed by talking with others in the room or by phone (33.5%), and mentally tuning out ads (30.2%).

Interestingly just 5.5% said they regularly fully pay attention to commercials. That’s got to hurt any advertisers out there. And the survey didn’t even take into account DVR users, who may routinely skip through commercials. Wonder how many of us DVR users usually pay attention to commercials. I sometimes catch an interesting snippet of a commercial and rewind to watch one. But that does not happen very often. The ad must look very engaging or weird for me to think it’s worthy to watch.

What happens when there are no commercials? How do people with DVRs multi-task when they skip commercials? Most likely they have to create their own breaks (bathroom, phone calls, smoking, laundry, cooking, etc.) whenever they can. As an avid skipper of commercials, I can go hours without taking a break from watching TV.

And when is a good time to stop? During actual commercial breaks or do you just pause it whenever? I do both.

The survey also found that eating is the number one activity people do while using media followed by doing housework, doing laundry, cooking and talking on phone. Now that’s all media like radio, TV and Internet.

Technorati Tags: DVR, advertising, survey, research

A report from Deloitte & Touche says that 38% of Americans are watching TV shows online. A previous study conducted just 8 months ago found that 23% watched shows on the Internet.

About 54 percent said they are creating their own online content such as photos, videos or music. Most of these are for others to see. In fact, 32 percent said they consider themselves to be “broadcasters” of their own media.

Additionally:

• 54 percent socialize via social networking sites, chat rooms or message boards,
• 36 percent said they use their cell phones as entertainment devices. Just eight months ago, 24% said they did so meaning that usage has grown over 50 percent. Most are using digital cameras, text messaging, and games on their phones.
• 45 percent are creating online content like Web sites, music, videos and blogs
• 20 percent view videos on their cell phones daily or almost daily
• 45 percent maintain a profile on a social networking site.
• 85 percent still find TV advertising to have the most impact on their buying

[Press release here]

Technorati Tags: research, analysis, Deloitte & Touche, TV, advertising, mobile, mobile media, social networking,   content creators

The New York Times has a story about how Tivo is finally making in-roads with advertisers, after many were initially mad at the company since it allowed viewers to fast-forward through ads.

In recent years, Tivo has been moving away from being a technology company that had to deal with hardware and subscriptions into a media/ratings company that is dealing with services.

How has it made this change?

• Creating a DVR Ratings Service. Its recently unveiled Stop|Watch service allows advertisers to track “second by second” movements by DVR viewers. This gives a more accurate count of who’s watching ads, how many people skip ads, most popular Season Pass shows and other top-rated shows. Tivo says its DVR ratings service has a larger panel than Nielsen’s (20,00 vs. 3,000).  NBC recently became a subscriber.

• Partnering with Advertisers. Rather than becoming enemies with advertisers, Tivo has grown into a media partner, giving them new ways to promote their products to their users.

• Creating New, Effective and Creative Ad Solutions. Because Tivo breaks new ground, it must also change how it advertises. As such it has created numerous new advertising buys including:

1. End of Show Text Ads. When a show ends, viewers are shown a short one line ad about a new show that they might want to watch. Or some other product that comes with a pre-downloaded video that viewers can watch for more information.
2. Thumbs Up/Record From Commercial. If you happen to watch (or fast forward through) commercials, you can see a thumbs up icon pasted on top of the screen. This allows viewers to hit their Thumbs Up button on their Tivo remote and record a show that’s being advertised.
3. Featured on Now Playing Screen. Sometimes ads appear just on the Now Playing menu, which is the menu that users go when they want to view their pre-recorded TV shows. A text ad sits on the bottom of the menu. If a viewer clicks on it, they are taken to an action screen with more information and possible a video/commercial to watch.

The Times story also said that things are looking up for Tivo in other ways. The lawsuit against EchoStar is progressing in Tivo’s favor, which may add substantial revenue if it finally gets the $90 million it was awarded (but is still in appeal).

Which means Tivo my soon be in a better place financially:

According to Tony Wible, an analyst with Citigroup, television networks now “have to embrace DVR advertising, and TiVo is a leader there.” He added that “the NBC deal adds a lot of credibility to that business, which I think could be as big or bigger as the current DVR business today.” He predicted that TiVo could start to break even in its quarterly earnings within a year.

It’s no surprise. Time shifting is for the young. A study by the Nielsen company found that younger adult TV viewers are 2.5 times more likely to timeshift than older viewers.

In fact, 50% of older viewers said would “do nothing or wait for reruns” for shows they missed. Do nothing? Do they not care about the latest Lost or Heroes episodes?

And think about it. Reruns? How often do you keep track of reruns and when they might come back on the air? Nobody likes reruns, unless you happen to miss an episode? And unless you’re some sort of fanatic (or a younger TV viewer) you’ll probably be OK with missing a show.

In fact, reruns are dying. They’re being replaced by DVRs, iTunes/iPods, Start Over on-demand features on cable and streaming via the Internet.

It’s almost as if the TV networks don’t really care about repeats, since they are putting recently aired shows on the Internet for free. Or by paid download via iTunes (or even NetFlix, which is where I go to catch up on Heroes).

Anyway, younger viewers are more hip to technology, have more time to waste hunting down their favorite shows and have grown up with online TV viewing.

The study also found that 50% went to ABC.com more than any other TV site when looking for catching up on shows. NBC.com and CBS.com were next.

Bonus: Nielsen’s PDF of the Study Results.