NBC launches new viewer with 07-08 season

Last year was just the test for online viewing of episodes, but now its for real. NBC Universal has dropped Apple's iTunes Store (and visa versa) but with one of the worst streaming viewers on the market the question was how NBC would fare in this new medium. The answer, a few weeks ago was the launching of a revamped NBC.com viewer.

The concept is leagues above last season's. Modeled after ABC.com's viewer, NBC has three sizes including a full screen. Breaking from other networks though, NBC's full screen include a mask around the entire frame that includes the series logo on the top and a logo of the sponsoring brand on the bottom of the screen.

The biggest addition in concept is the adding of ABC styled thirty second advertising units. A 30-second count down also alerts viewers to the time remaining for the break. However, unlike ABC, the show automatically restarts unless you attempt to interact with the ad.

The second season premier of Heroes, for the first 24 hours was sponsored exclusively by Nissan's Rouge which also has a placement inside the episode as well according to MediaWeek (the cheerleader gets the family Rouge [a car not seen in the first season] and she says that her dad is the best dad ever). In sponsoring the streaming episode, a short video of the Rouge drives around an abandon New York City then allows users to look at videos about the different features of car.

The campaign was created by Nissan's OMD Agency.

Hidden in the ads though are also DVD styled extras about Heroes and an easter egg series of videos called "The Maze Master" which are quite fun to watch. Over all the advertisement is engaging and uses the medium exceedingly well. In fact after seeing less than one episode, I now actually remember the name of the car, and a few of its features (Bluetooth hands free phone via the steering wheel) having never heard of the car before.

Other advertisers on the site currently, though not with nearly as compelling ad units are Proctor & Gamble's "Head and Shoulders" brand which simply re-uses an :30 spot and HP which is running a static branding ad that seems to imply interactivity but when clicked on links to an HP promotional Web site.

However, there are major technical glitches. For instance I've still seen less than the first episode of Heroes because after the first ad block of the show never restarted. Then when I tried to reload the browser and start from the second act I got a file not found error.

Other problems also occurred. The first few times I tried to watch the episode, I would hear the sound but the screen was asking me to select an episode again which would re-run the Rouge advert. While trying to watch the Journeyman pilot the same issue occurred before I was able to watch anything at all. Chuck on the other hand played but about half way through just fine, then started to become rather choppy, and never recovered.

In general, the interface is the best I've seen yet. The video quality is good, about the same as ABC's last season, which was already fantastic. The bugs on the other hand are damning. The site has only been live with the new season for about 24 hours as of posting this, but these errors will have to be fixed soon if this update will ever live up to it's potential.

If NBC does manage to turn the reliability around, the player may be the new gold standard. The ability to have extra features and interactive advertising will make sponsorships much more valuable than the mere pennies, or at best dimes networks have been charging for these impressions. NBC should be able to finally see substantive revenue from its online content.