• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, March 13, 2006

MSN Video plans to preview part of NBC's new series "Heist" on Tuesday, a week before it airs on television. The drama, about a band of crooks casing Rodeo Drive for a string of robberies, was developed by Doug Liman, known for directing films including "The Bourne Supremacy" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." The preview will be available on MSN Video for two weeks.

As of Friday, MSN and NBC had not decided whether or not to accompany the 15-minute "Heist" preview with ads, according to MSN General Manager of Entertainment and Video Rob Bennett. "It's a promotion for the show, and we're really not in a position where we have to advertise a piece of video we have."

Ads also can distract from the main objective of a preview like this, which is getting the show's hook as deep as possible into viewers' mouths, said Bennett. "First and foremost, it's about engaging people. Our business is obviously based on advertising, but if you don't have an audience, the advertising doesn't matter much."

The "Heist" preview is one of many tests NBC is presently conducting with its shows online. Among other experiments, the network is giving away ad-supported programming from its own NBC.com site--like short skits from "Saturday Night Live" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien"--as well as selling or giving away whole series episodes from the iTunes music. In late February, for example, NBC began offering free downloads of its new legal drama "Conviction" over iTunes. NBC has since starting charging $1.99 for new and archived episodes of the series.

One aspect of NBC's online marketing strategy is apparent: It wants control over the distribution and flow of its programming. This became clear late last month when NBC unleashed its lawyers on the popular video-sharing Web site YouTube.com, demanding that the site stop carrying its shows. "We were concerned about building their corporation instead of ours, since it's our video," Stephen Andrade, NBC's vice president of interactive development, told MediaDailyNews recently.

Separately, MSN Video launched a Web hub for the sixth season of HBO's "Sopranos" on Friday. The site--TV.MSN.com/TV/Sopranos--features a mob of video, including this season's trailer and exclusive clips, a recap of season five, popular series' moments, and an interview with "Sopranos"' creator David Chase.

The "Sopranos" site is not being sponsored by any particular brand, said Bennett. Rather, MSN's more than 50 advertisers have run-of-site access to the site.