• Ad Age, Thursday, April 13, 2006 12 PM

Jeff Bewkes wants to go all the way. Instead of tiptoeing into the video-on-demand waters, the Time Warner president told a panel of industry leaders yesterday he favors an all-out approach: Make all television content, including commercials, available to VOD subscribers, and soon. It's a great business model, he said, and it represents nothing but upside for content makers and deliverer alike. Bewkes: "Maybe I have a dream, but I think the cable industry should put free VOD for all networks into place in the next year.... Take the most successful model in ad-supported entertainment--the ad-supported TV networks--and make them not just linear but on demand and find a way to keep the commercials so you can't fast forward. It would preserve vitality of production community and create natural extensions on Web and mobile of exactly the sort you're hearing here. I would like us all to think about that." The presumed heir apparent to Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons, Bewkes made his comments--which gained wide and immediate circulation--at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association's annual industry show. Other industry leaders said much the same thing without going quite so far as Bewkes in their all-out enthusiasm for the concept.

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