• Advertising Age, Tuesday, July 14, 2009 12:33 AM

TV networks are hoping that promoting new shows earlier than ever via online and offline media will bring bigger audiences this fall. For instance, ABC in late April started running promos for its new mysterious drama "Flash Forward," even before the network admitted it was picking up the show. CBS is giving affiliates promotional materials to tout fall programming at 10 p.m. well in advance of NBC's "Jay Leno Show" prime-time talk-show launch.

Thanks to the rise of social networking on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, tipping off die-hard fans to early peeks at selected programs can lead to more buzz and a viral priming of the pump. "What we're doing now gives us four months to try to get people to sample and come on board," says Joe Earley, Fox executive.

NBC has purchased ads related to keywords for its new comedy "Community" as well as the "Jay Leno Show," says Adam Stotsky, NBC marketing president. Because online media tends to attract enthusiastic niches of people, TV marketers are "talking to an audience that is voracious in its appetite for information," says Stotsky. "What was historically germane to just fanboys is become how the mass mainstream is learning about new shows and building relationships with those shows -- well in advance of the shows actually coming to air."

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