• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, Erik Sass  @eriksass1, July 30, 2007

TV broadcasters have announced a number of deals with place-based video networks in recent weeks, highlighting the growing importance of this burgeoning medium. As the traditional TV audience continues to fragment, taking advantage of disruptive technologies like TiVo, video-on-demand and the Internet, place-based video offers a new route to consumers--often in a cleverly selected "captive audience" situation.

In the last two weeks, NBC Universal announced two big place-based video deals. The first provides specially branded NBC News content to Channel One, an in-school video network that delivers a 12-minute news broadcast--including two minutes of commercials--to 11,000 high schools nationwide, reaching a total of 7 million teenagers ages 13-18.

The second deal brings NBCU content to Premier Retail Networks' "Supermarket Checkout TV," with a footprint covering more than 1,000 stores, including chains like Albertsons and Shop Rite. According to NBCU, the retail video network delivers about 45 million impressions a year.

A third deal is in the works to display NBCU content, including ads, on PATH commuter trains running between New York and New Jersey. PATH's 230,000 daily riders include many well-heeled office workers traveling to and from financial and legal offices in New York. Video screens are scheduled for installation--two per car--throughout the PATH fleet by 2011.

NBC already has deals to distribute content in taxis in New York City and Chicago in partnership with Clear Channel Taxi Media. Currently, NBC content is running in 475 New York City taxis, which constitute the experimental phase of the taxi video program. However, all New York City taxis are expected to have video systems installed by their next Taxi and Limousine Commission inspection on Oct. 1.

If NBC is chosen as the content provider for this fully operational phase, it would have access to riders in almost 13,000 medallion or "yellow" cabs. With taxis making about 470,000 trips a day, and the average trip lasting 13 minutes, this represents a substantial audience opportunity.

NBCU's Jay Ireland--until recently the head of NBC's O&O group--said the company wants "to transform the television experience into more of a local experience across a multitude of platforms that everyone can access every day."

For its part, CBS has inaugurated a new "Outernet" strategy that distributes CBS-branded content through place-based video networks to promote its broadcast fare. Most recently, CBS announced a partnership with Healium, a video network serving waiting rooms in doctors' offices that is set to include 120,000 medical practices by the end of 2008, delivering 3 million viewers per month.

Seeming to echo NBCU's Ireland, George Schweitzer, president of the CBS Marketing Group, lauded Healium and the Outernet strategy generally for "finding unique ways to reach a captive audience when they're out of their homes."

The CBS "Outernet" program, launched in 2006, already includes a number of place-based video partners, most enjoying the distinction of "captive" audiences. Thus, CBS has partnered with SignStorey to bring video content to supermarkets around the country--putting it into competition with NBC and PRN. It's also pushing content through shopping malls, auto service centers and hair salons. Corporate partners receiving its original content include American Airlines, Royal Caribbean, Starwood Hotels, Indoor Direct, Mall of America, Simon Malls and Ripple TV.

Finally, ABC and corporate sibling ESPN are making content available to Gas Station TV, which is expanding to include 6,000 screens in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago by the end of the year. With an average fill-up time of four and a half minutes--which require fairly close attention to the pump meter, adjacent to the video console--Gas Station TV and rival services like Pump Top TV offer broadcasters and advertisers another attractive audience proposition.

Striking the same note as Ireland and Schweitzer, Matt Murphy, a digital video distribution executive, remarked: "Sports fans expect ESPN to deliver the best in sports content and programming to them, wherever and whenever they are."