• BusinessWeek, Thursday, April 9, 2009 9:15 AM

By the end of the year, Canoe Ventures -- a consortium of major cable operators, Dish Network, and others -- will roll out "addressable" ad technology that allows companies to run two or more commercials aimed at different slices of viewers during the same 30-second time slot.

The first major initiative by Canoe begins in late May with cable networks such as USA and MTV. Another venture by Comcast in Baltimore is slicing viewers into four groups based on shared characteristics --such as whether they likely have a new baby or own a dog.

Burger King plans to "dip a toe" and begin experimenting with the technology this year, but a sticking point is how much to charge for addressable ads. Satellite, phone, and cable companies want to charge a premium for targeted commercials, but advertisers don't yet know how much a smaller, interested audience is worth. Fees will depend ultimately on how targeted and interactive the ads become, if companies will be able to target smaller groups and whether viewers can use their remotes to buy products directly.

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