BigShinyThing

USA Today reports that New Balance will join cable companies Comcast and Time Warner and workout expert Jake Steinfeld in creating Exercise TV, an on demand network that will be available on both operators’ cable systems. New Balance won’t need to run any advertising on the channel — there’s no point as on-demand viewers can speed past them. Instead, New Balance clothing, shoes and equipment will be both featured and endorsed heavily in the content. New Balance will also sponsor graphic overlays that will run during the videos, giving viewers advice on subjects such as the best way to warm up for a workout.

“[The deal] will give birth to the next generation of cable networks” by signaling “the beginning of a shift of advertising to new, non-linear platforms,” says Matt Strauss, Comcast’s vice president of programming and content development.

New Balance has got the jump on its rivals Nike and Adidas in this area mainly because company’s much smaller marketing budget has forced it to finely tune its marketing. For the first ten months of 2005, New Balance’s ad spending was $17.3 million compared with Nike’s $141m. The company will not disclose how much it has invested in the deal but is happy to admit that it has diverted funds from traditional TV and magazine advertising. According to Strauss, ever keen to talk up the viability of on-demand, New Balance’s “multimillion-dollar” investment in Exercise TV is “the most significant sponsorship agreement we’ve ever seen exclusive to VOD (video-on-demand).”

On-demand is rapidly growing as a platform. About 45% of cable subscribers in the States pay about $15 a month extra for the digital tier required to access on-demand. And while viewers still have to pay to watch recent movies on-demand, companies like Comcast and Time Warner have greatly increased the amount of free content on their services (no doubt to compete with the burgeoning threat from online). More than 12 million houses use on-demand more than once a month and that figure is expected to rise to 30 million by the end of 2009, according to Leichtman Research Group. At the same time, methods of proving ROI are getting increasingly sophisticated. Last year Comcast and Rentrak, an information-management company, began making monthly usage reports available to programmers providing on-demand content. Nielsen Media Research — also looking for a way to justify its existence in the new media landscape — plans to start measuring on-demand audiences later this year.

Other major advertisers are beginning to get with the program(ming). General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are involved in ‘drivertv’, an on-demand network that was launched last year. Meanwhile, RipeTV, which targets the lucrative 18-34 year old male demographic, also launched in 2005 with the involvement of brands such as P&G and DaimleyChrysler.

Meanwhile, Amazon — never slow to get with the program — has now announced plans to produce its own online TV show.
Brandrepublic reports that the 30-minute programme will be called ‘Amazon Fishbowl with Bill Maher’, the US political humourist and author, and will be streamed live every Thursday night, US time. The shows will include live performances by musicians and interviews with authors, directors and actors, all of course handily driving shopping traffic and preference data to the site. Amazon plans to preview the programme at this weekend’s Sundance Film Festival, where Maher’s guests will include the writer Armistead Maupin and Collette, who is promoting the film The Night Listener. Such is Amazon’s clout that legendary horror author Stephen King will be interviewed ahead of the January 24 launch of his new novel, Cell.

Kathy Savitt, vice-president of strategic communications at Amazon.com, said: “We believe that Bill Maher’s interviews with some of the world’s most renowned and up-and-coming artists and entertainers will offer customers unique insight into the motivations and inspirations behind the books, films and music they love.” In other words, ‘Amazon recommends’ writ large.