• by Wayne Friedman , June 2, 2010

Testing the waters for the next wave of Internet video services, ABC may be looking to start a low fee/advertiser-supported video service.

A recent survey went out to ABC Internet video customers asking their opinion about such a video service -- one that may be priced around $1.99 and $4.99 a month. It would run fewer commercials than currently exist on digital platforms.

Right now with Hulu -- of which Disney-ABC is a partner in, or at ABC.com -- services offer five to 10 episodes or more of a recent TV show free to viewers with commercials.

Some four or five 30-second commercials run in a traditional hour TV show -- which is actually around 43 or 44 minutes of TV programming content on Internet platforms. Typically, some 20 commercials run in a traditional TV airing of an hour-long show.

Under the new pay plan, consumers would get the five latest episodes of current shows -- and the most recent episode immediately after they air in their time zone. Episodes of older ABC shows would also be available, but with far fewer ads than exist now: just 15% of the commercials normally seen for some TV shows via traditional cable/ satellite/IPTV/over-the-air platforms, per a report in High-Def Digest.

Under the proposed plan, if consumers continue to remain on a totally free digital service, they would see the last two episodes of most current shows -- but no shows that are off-air.

Viewers would get about 35% of the commercials that you see on regular television and HD video quality. But they will need to wait until the morning after to access the most recent episode.

An ABC statement says: "In order to better understand our audience as the digital marketplace evolves, we constantly conduct research on a variety of subjects to garner useful insights. We are always interested in learning more about how consumers think about content windowing, subscription options and new digital delivery methods, which may or may not ever come to pass."

Last month, Hulu began testing its own pay-service, which would continue to provide the five most recent episodes of shows like Fox's "Glee," "ABC's "Desperate Housewives" and NBC's "The Office" for free. But for additional episodes, viewers pay $9.95 a month for access to something called Hulu Plus.