Comcast/CBS Test VOD Freeviews

By John Eggerton
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

Comcast and CBS are making prime time VOD episodes of the Survivor finale/reunion show available free to Comcast digital customers in four markets.

General Motors is sponsoring the test, which the companies are billing as the first ad-supported prime time broadcast of network VOD programming on a major cable operator.

The show will be available free to Comcast digital customers the day after its May 14 airing in Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago and Philadelphia and remain available through Aug. 31.

Rather than carry the regular commercial load, however, the VOD versions in those markets will feature only three ads, one at the beginning, one in the middle, and one at the end, all directing viewers to a GM Showroom accessible via the Comcast On Demand menu.

CBS and Comcast partnered earlier in the year to deliver VOD versions of CBS prime time shows CSI, NCIS, Survivor and Amazing Race for 99 cents a pop in markets where CBS owns a station.

John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.