A few
days ago TUAW posted a story about ESPN
content, including the "This is SportsCenter" ads, being available on iTunes. Well it seems some iTunes users
weren't thrilled about paying $1.99 for a 30-second
commercial when that's the same price they pay for a full episode of Lost. Well according to Steve Rubel the $1.99 fee has been dropped from
the ESPN commercials and they are now available free of charge.
What was ESPN thinking? Did they really sit in a meeting and say, "Let's charge people to watch commercials"? Commercials should be available free of charge as a way to build brand loyalty and encourage people to view them often and on any device - portable or not - they wish to. There's a debate going on right now regarding VOD, cable programming and DVDs over whether and how much people are willing to pay to avoid commercials, not whether they'll pay to watch just the commercials. That's ridiculous.
1. I think if anybody is going to charge for an ad, though, it should be ESPN. Their old commercials are some of the funniest sketches you will see on TV.
One of my favorites was the Y2K commercial where the entire ESPN office is going crazy with emergency lights flashing. You see mascots running all over the place, and then you see Mark McGwire with a baseball bat in hand looking like he is going to beat anyone down who tries to keep him from safety.
Pure comedy. I would dare to say it is probably better than some of the full length TV shows available for download.
And if you think about it, TV entertainment originally started out as basically sponsored commercials.
I see nothing wrong with charging for commercials as long as the content is good.
Posted at 1:04AM on Feb 1st 2006 by Anthony Graddy