• by Masha Geller , October 7, 2003

The web world seems to be fairly predictable this week. First off, it's official. Overture Services, Inc. today announced that its stockholders have approved Yahoo's proposal to acquire Overture and the acquisition will be completed after the close of Nasdaq trading today.

That surprise aside, here's another strong argument for cross-media deals: season premieres of several popular television programs drove some heavy traffic to television sites in the last few weeks and advertisers should keep in mind that at-work audiences are the responsible party.

According to NetRatings, traffic to NBC surged 77% to 767,000 unique visitors from work, as compared to 433,000 visitors during the previous week. This surge was in part the result of surfers accessing pages for the popular series Friends and the West Wing, both premiering last week. Cable TV site Discovery grew 66% drawing 629,000 surfers, most of whom flocked to Trading Spaces pages.

ABC Primetime was a popular destination for fans of reality series The Bachelor, which began its latest installment last week. ABC's Alias, was also among top pages within ABC Primetime, which increased 65% to 621,000 visitors. The WB network site attracted 890,000 visitors, driving traffic up 64%, from 543,000 visitors the previous week. Surfers logged on to access pages for the season premiere of Charmed. Rounding out the top five fastest growing TV sites was PBS, which grew 59% from 374,000 to 596,000 visitors for the week ending September 28. Of those visiting the site, more than 31% accessed pages for The Blues, a seven-part film series, which premiered last week.

Elsewhere on the web, with the World Series playoffs underway, MLB.com predictably grew 28% at home, for the week ending September 28th, to more than 1.7 million unique visitors. Fans logged on to check scoreboards and league standings.

Here's hoping the coming days stir up more excitement.