Perhaps because no one is actually going to watch Kirstie Alley’s Fat Actress, Showtime has signed a deal with Yahoo to have the entire first episode of the series webcast on Yahoo. The episode will be made available in it’s entirety, including commercials, March 7 through March 12. Maybe the air valve in our head is loose this morning, but we wonder why people would go out of their way to watch the episode online with commercials when they could view it offline on commercial-free Showtime. Check that valve for us, would you? Chiding aside, we think it’s a great idea to take TV programming to the web. With audience segmentation growing, TV viewing down, multitasking up and personal video player usage growing, it makes perfect sense to “broadcast” programming from the web where it can be viewed at a time of people’s choosing just as the TiVo and On Demand services provide offline. Additionally, actual viewership can be tracked more effectively online than off and advertisers will love that.
Yahoo Media and Entertainment honcho Lloyd Braun tells Ad Age he has plans for a “big signature event” that he likens to the sea changing qualities of I love Lucy and The Sopranos. We hope it’s not all talk.
