• TV Week, Tuesday, May 2, 2006 11:15 AM

NBC's ratings juggernaut “Today” this week has begun to post the first hour of the program on the Web.  Although certain elements of the show will be deleted--local weather inserts, for example--NBC says its Webcast will be more complete than those of morning rivals “Good Morning America” and “The Early Show,” both of which got to the Web sooner than did “Today.”  Jeff Zucker, CEO of the NBC Universal Television Group, has been aggressive in asking his executives to develop material for alternative delivery platforms, reports TV Week.  NBC says it may make the second hour of “Today” available in the future, but not before assessing interest in the Webcast of the first hour. NBC's decision to put “Today” on the Web is "yet another indicator that the ad-supported model for broadband video is becoming attractive to major program providers, and we expect that's going to continue in the future," says Will Richmond, founder and president of Broadband Directions, a market intelligence and consulting firm. Three-quarters of the available ad time in the “Today” Webcast has been sold for the first month, mostly to automotive and pharmaceutical companies, says John Kelly, senior vice president of NBC News network sales.

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