• BusinessWeek, Friday, May 5, 2006 11:45 AM

Business Week's media columnist, Jon Fine, focuses this week on a phenomenon that should warm the profit-adoring hearts of local TV executives everywhere.  While their stations are scrambling to keep audiences--and in many cases battling with the networks for a proper share of revenues generated by downloaded programs--they are finding that advertisers are flocking to the stations' Web sites. And the nice thing is that advertisers can instantly appreciate the upside of booking space.  Fine: "Sometimes the Web can give back some of what it takes away, and there's untapped upside for local TV guys online. Ad agency folks will tell you that there's more demand for Web video ads--for a local station's site, the ad snippet preceding, say, sports highlights--than there is inventory. Although cost estimates vary wildly, analysts reckon that Web sites notch significantly more revenue for video ads than for other online ads."

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