• by Shankar Gupta , July 7, 2005

MTV Networks is launching two free, ad-supported broadband channels based on children's network Nickelodeon and music video network VH1, aimed at offering their viewers exclusive, Web-only content and content from the show's regular content on-demand.

The sites, Nickelodeon's TurboNick and VH1's Vspot, are similar to MTV's own broadband video channel, MTV Overdrive. Each will have original content--Vspot will go live today with the first episode of VH1's "The Surreal Life," three days before it airs on TV, and TurboNick, which quietly went live Friday, will have a new cartoon entitled "Catscratch." In addition, each will also offer original Web content, such as making-of-shorts, interviews, and clips, as well as on-demand content already aired on the respective networks. For example, TurboNick offers the first episodes of three popular Nickelodeon series free for streaming on the site.

Both TurboNick and Vspot incorporate rich media ads, and already have advertisers lined up. TurboNick will feature ads from General Mills, Tops, Activision, Sony Pictures, and Kellogg's. Vspot's advertisers declined to be identified, but include a DSL provider and a consumer products manufacturer.

The ads will be 15-second spots placed interstitially within the video clips on both channels, and TurboNick will also have so-called "leave-behind" ads, which are small ad banners that show while the video clips are playing.

MTV Networks' senior vice president of digital music and media, Jason Hirschhorn, said the network is investing in rich media sites because the increasing availability of broadband has allowed it to put more of its content on the Web. "We're largely a visual and audio channel, and we've so far been forced to work in a largely text and low-res image environment," he said. "With the rise of broadband, this is our game now, and we can really play in the way that we want to play."

Hirschhorn said that the network is planning more launches of rich media, on-demand video sites--one for Comedy Central and its college student-focused channel MTVU, which is beamed into 750 college campuses around the U.S. via closed-circuit televisions. Sites for other properties like SpikeTV and the Country Music Channel are under consideration.

According to Hirschhorn, the architecture the company built for MTV Overdrive was easily extendible, and although not every MTV property will definitely be getting a broadband channel, many of them will. Even Logo, MTV's just-launched channel for lesbian and gay viewers, is in line to get an on-demand broadband channel.

Hirschhorn also said that MTV's core young audience is moving more and more online. "It's the new distribution channel," he said. "Our advertisers are moving there, and our audience is already online."

MTV Networks launched its first broadband video channel in April with MTV Overdrive. During its "soft" launch, which started last week, TurboNick has streamed over one million video clips.

All of MTV Networks' broadband sites are only compatible with Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and do not run with Firefox. Hirschhorn said that MTV Networks is working on getting the sites compatible with the open source browser.