• Variety, Tuesday, January 8, 2008 11 AM

Hollywood executives revealed that advertising has become the digital revenue model of choice for its productions after years of pithy revenues from paid downloads. During a panel at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, executives overseeing digital distribution for ABC Disney TV, Fox, Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures. Most of the talk centered around high-quality streaming on-demand video.

"People online want to watch for free, because they can get content for free via piracy," said Fox digital media's Dan Fawcett. "Downloading to own and keep on a PC seems to be losing out. People like to watch on an impulse."

That said, advertising revenue from digital distribution isn't where it needs to be, other executives admitted. Albert Cheng of ABC-Disney TV digital media said the network has been unable to sell out its online ad inventory. "The inflow of revenue isn't tracking demand yet," he said. And it probably won't for some time.

Read the whole story at Variety »