Cable introduces anytime election channel

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: The cable industry, aiming to prevent internet companies like Yahoo! and YouTube from snatching away its ad revenue, has introduced an experimental political channel that gives advertisers a uniform way to buy time and measure the number of people watching. The channel, called “Elections ’08 On Demand” lets people watch videos whenever they want, much the way they can on YouTube or the websites of television networks. Depending on where they live, people can tune into the channel to see an infomercial for Barack Obama, coverage of the Democratic National Conven-tion, or historical clips like Lyndon B Johnson’s “Daisy” ad.

So far the nascent channel offers only about eight hours of programming. But the participating cable companies, many of which joined a consortium this year called Canoe Ventures, say this effort shows that they can work together well. Canoe Ventures is trying to make cable television a more attractive place for advertisers; Elections ’08 is the first product it has worked on.

The channel is available in 32 million households, primarily the ones served by the six partners of Canoe Ventures: Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cablevision Systems, Charter Communications, Cox Communications and Bright House Networks. Most subscribers probably have not noticed it, because it is not particularly easy to find: On Time Warner, for example, it is Channel 1279; while on Cable-vision, it’s Channel 500. Though Elections ’08 has been available since January, only 5,00,000 segments have been viewed, said David Porter, vice-president for marketing and new media at the Cox Media division of Cox Communications. And that is even after all the local markets of the participating cable companies pledged to run at least 100 spots a week promoting it.

Canoe Ventures aims to make cable a more desirable place for advertisers by standardising the way ads are bought and measured, and the way that technology is used. It is also working on longer-term projects such as placing ads in on-demand content, asking viewers to vote or answer polling questions with their remote controls and aiming television ads to specific households.