Turner Broadcasting, which owns stations like TBS and TNT, recently ran a little test. They wanted to see how online viewer’s of their shows reacted when presented with a handful of video ads versus a slew of them. Turns out, both groups react about the same.
They tested 30 and 60 minute shows. On one side of the test, viewers had to watch about a minute of video ads. On the other side of the test, viewers had to watch between 16-20 minutes worth of video ads. For the 30 minute shows, 40% watched until completion when a minute’s worth of ads where shown. 37% watched to completion when 16 minutes worth of ads where shown. And the numbers were about the same for 60 minute shows (59%/49%).
Of course the variable in this is the content…if people really want to see something, they’ll put up with ads…otherwise, they’ll bolt. And there was no word from Turner on how effective the video ads actually were…which is probably the biggest wildcard of them all.
What would the test market do if they did not have to watch the ads. I have to believe people usually do other things during the commercial break. When the commercials are better than the content that when we stop wathing at all.