- Commentary -

September 28, 2009 (FinancialWire) (By Bob Farley) — Due diligence these days has to include consideration of how companies use the Internet. One area making good use of the advertising possibilities is the entertainment industry, such as USA Network’s (a division of GE’s (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal), whose online offerings of their popular sleuth series Psych and Monk almost always flow flawlessly onto my 2004 Windows XP computer.

For those times when a show doesn’t play smoothly on your computer, making it a little like the joke on last week’s Emmy broadcast where fun was poked at the jerkiness of some online downloads, try restarting your computer. Worked for me when watching Disney-owned (NYSE: DIS) ABC’s online presentation of its new sci-fi drama FlashForward. For a while. My old comp just doesn’t like ABC’s new player. Turns out, neither does my new computer. I couldn’t even send a feedback note through the site’s dedicated feedback section. And that makes me sad. Their advertisers may take note of that, too, so score one for NBC tonight.

I cheer the attempts that television make in putting their shows online. For now, the commercials are no more than 30 seconds per fifteen minutes, a far cry from television’s average of three minutes a quarter hour. That will undoubtedly change, but for now, enjoy the reprieve and watch an hour-long show in 45 minutes.

Maybe online advertising isn’t the big moneymaker that print ads were in the past. But not much is like it was in the “good old days.”

[Go to http://www.financialwire.net/?s=bob+farley to see more commentaries and articles by Bob Farley.]

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