Advertisers now channelling their energies on the net
Ad breaks have become a thing of the past for some viewers who use a broadband internet connection to watch television shows or listen to the radio on a personal computer. But worried marketers, fearing a world in which they can no longer use TV commercials to deliver their message to homes around the world, are taking matters into their own hands by starting their own internet 'channels'.
Land Rover, owned by Ford Motor, are this month introcucing what it bills as the first broadband television channel run by a car company. Featuring an around-the-clock schedule of packaged multimedia programming, it is, of course, interspersed with ads for the Land Rover brand.
Bacardi, the rum maker, has also jumped on the bandwagon, launching an online radio station, available over the internet and through mobile phones. The service will stream 'uplifting party anthems from the world's hottest dance floors' to listeners worldwide.
The Land Rover and Bacardi projects are some of the first to mascarade advertiser-financed content as a 'channel', and they are doing it at a a fraction of the cost of conventional TV channels distributed via cable or satellite. Global availability is another advantage to internet 'channels'.
The problem, as with much advertiser-sponsored programming, may be the content. Is anyone actually going to tune in to Go Beyond, or to Bacardi's B-Live Radio? Here are the addresses just in case...
Emma Somers