• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, June 29, 2009

Still looking for a lucrative model to monetize online video, NBC has a deal where Visa is sponsoring ad-free streaming on NBC.com. The credit-card marketer has signed to offer more than 200 episodes from "Friday Night Lights" and "The Office" without commercials.

The NBC.com promotion carries a "Go Commercial Free" tag, in line with a 3-month-old Visa campaign with the "More People Go With Visa" catchphrase.

Visa banners appear on the landing page where users can access the shows. When a show is clicked, a full-screen Visa-branded billboard appears before an episode plays.

The length of the Visa promotion is unclear. But it is only attached to episodes within a section on NBC.com, not for the same content on Hulu.com, which is partially owned by NBC Universal.

NBC.com, Hulu and other platforms are searching for ways to increase revenues for the online streaming of full episodes. One model under consideration is the opposite of Visa's strategy: to heavily increase the commercial load for the shows.