• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, October 5, 2004

This summer, USA Today's Web site teamed up with The FeedRoom, a New York-based company specializing in providing broadband, in hopes of converting those online readers to online video viewers. Primarily, the new initiative made it easier for users to watch streaming videos with one click, without worrying about the technological aspects of downloading them and regardless of what type of media player they used.

So far, said USAToday.com Editor in Chief Kinsey Wilson, the plan has worked. Users downloaded about 100,000 video streams the first week after the Aug. 15 launch. By the end of September, users downloaded about 500,000 video streams per week.

Video footage, available for about one out of 20 stories on the site, comes from a combination of sources including the Associated Press television feeds and USA Today Live, the newspaper's television branch, said Wilson. Most spots are preceded by either a 15-second or 30-second ad--often an ad designed for television and repurposed for the Internet. Both USA Today and The FeedRoom sell the ads.

USA Today one of a number of online news sites attempting to expand its video viewership. The FeedRoom recently signed on other clients, including Newsday, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune, according to FeedRoom CEO Jon Klein. Those papers use video footage from Tribune television stations, said Klein.

Klein said that the growing interest stems from both Web users' desire to watch videos and marketers' appetite for broadband ads. "We're a nation addicted to television," said Klein, the former executive producer of CBS News. "The more places there are to watch TV, the more people will watch."

At the same time, he said, advertisers prefer rich media on the Web. "They all want to sponsor online video," he said. "It's harder and harder to sell banners and easier and easier to sell broadband."

Advertising executives agree that rich media is preferable to banner ads--mainly because it calls more attention to itself. At the same time, some say that broadband ads make the most sense when they accompany video content. Ads that "deliver a more video-like experience" will be "better-received in a video context," said Jeff Marshall, a Starcom IP senior vice president and managing director overseeing the video investment group.

Bob Flood, executive vice president and director of national electronic media for Optimedia, agreed that "a more videocentric environment will be embraced by advertisers."

And he pointed out that newspapers have famously lost a lot of classified ad revenue to the Internet. Repurposing television news, while finding a new source of income from television advertisers, is the newspaper world's "attempt to turn the tables a bit."