• Adweek, Thursday, February 7, 2013 4:51 PM

“Downton Abbey” sponsors Ralph Lauren and Viking River Cruises don’t get much air time on PBS for the hit series, but the non-commercial network is much more generous during the show’s popular online airings (2.7 million streams in January alone), writes David Griner. While advertisers get a pre-roll clip and up to two mid-program breaks (we don’t think PBS ever interrupts programs on-air, except for pledge appeals, of course), the network points out that the increased ad time is only 1.5 minutes, compared with six minutes on commercial network streams of hour-long shows.  The sponsors also get on-site display ads.  How much they’re paying for the exposure isn’t revealed, but the bottom line is that “viewers don’t seem to mind the ads.”  Some tweeters, Griner suggests, have seemed ready to take a Viking cruise in Lauren duds.

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