• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, April 2, 2007

AOL late last week secured a far more prominent role in the yet-unnamed video venture between NBC Universal and News Corp. Along with being a distribution partner, AOL's Advertising.com will provide display and video ad management services for the new site, as well as its dedicated video player destined to be embedded on countless partner sites.

During a recent press call, News Corp.'s President-COO Peter Chernin said he foresaw the site, expected to launch this summer, would be "the largest ad platform on Earth"--thanks to distribution deals with Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN, Time Warner's AOL and News Corp.'s MySpace. The combined audience will span into the hundreds of millions, or 96% of the U.S. Web viewing audience, Chernin said.

For the deal, Advertising.com will leverage its Lightningcast video ad serving platform to deliver and manage advertising to support the full-length programming, movies and clips that will be available across the network.

Media buyers--some already on board with the new venture--seem to consider Advertising.com as a logical choice.

"We have not used Advertising.com in any serious capacity, but their involvement doesn't take away from the high hopes I have for the deal," Adam Herman, senior vice president and integrated media director at MediaCom.

"We were one of the first to jump in, so it obviously didn't deter us," said Charlie Rutman, CEO of MPG North America. Royal Caribbean and eSurance, both MPG clients, were two of the first advertisers to commit to the deal within 24 hours of its announcement.

Sales of the venture's advertising inventory, adjacent to thousands of hours of video programming and spread across a network of distribution partners, will be shared between the new alliance and its media partners.

"The cross-platform nature and expansive reach of this new alliance make Advertising.com the right candidate to provide ad management services," said George Kliavkoff, NBC Universal Chief Digital Officer and interim leader of the newly announced strategic alliance.

In addition, display and video advertising inventory not utilized by the site's direct sales teams will be monetized by Advertising.com.

The deal "will also provide advertisers with an online opportunity on par with the best in television and movie advertising," said Lynda Clarizio, president of Advertising.com.

News Corp. and NBCU are promising a wide range of advertising sales opportunities.

"We're going to try to maximize the viewing and the use of ads," Chernin said recently. One key to the venture's success--along with aggregation, consumer control, and ubiquity of distribution--is "the opportunity for premium monetization," he added.