• by Wayne Friedman , November 5, 2009

ABC.com's new "episode commentary" extension for its online video player will add comments from producers, viewers and advertisers alike. The new endeavor begins Saturday.

ABC.com announced Wednesday that "ABC Social: Episode Commentary" will supply written on-screen comments from producers of TV shows that can be read at specific points while watching a episode. This is part of a new extension to ABC's "Full Episode Player."

These comments can be seen to the left of the player as a part of an active/live scroll. ABC is also selling the opportunity for advertisers to participate with their own commentary.

Alexis Rapo, vice president of digital media for ABC Entertainment, says, for example, that Lexus -- which is a "Flash Forward" advertiser -- could add remarks about the show or about the car brand itself.

For reality shows, this might work even better. Sears, for example, is a big marketing partner in "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," where its brands have a major part in the content of the show as branded entertainment.

"They have appliances in the entire home," says Rapo. So far, ABC has not made any deals with marketers for the new online messaging platform.

ABC will kick off 'ABC Social: Episode Commentary' on Saturday Nov. 7 with the first episode of "V." Commentary is courtesy of executive producers Scott Peters and Steve Pearlman.

In addition, with Facebook Connect -- which integrates with ABC's video player -- fans of specific shows can create their own commentary tracks of ABC episodes and share them with friends. Rapo notes that there are two ways to view the comments: One comes from directors/producers, where short messages will pop up 25 to 30 times in an episode. The other way is reading fan-only comments.