David Card from Jupiter offers a nice view inside MTV’s Overdrive broadband experience…It definitely sounds cool. The level of polish and the content refresh rate should easily draw viewers. The current MTV Generation is heavily wired and online…
Overdrive offers a mix of videos and exclusive performances, interviews, extra material to back up MTV shows (who knew Punk’d even had greatest hits?) and movie trailers. Most segments are 2-4 minutes long. News segments will be updated four times a day; the promoted Lineup channel will change about 7-8 times a day. Channels are teed up by promotional talking heads. Users can also cue up a playlist similar to MSN Video. (Didn’t Real try that once, only to abandon it?) There’s no twin-screen (simultaneous TV and broadband) content.
Programming is all ad-supported. MTV aims for a 1:6 ratio of ads to content. It’s trying to push advertisers to 15-second spots but will accept 30-second spots as well. No targeting yet. In fact, watching the exclusive first 10 minutes of Sony/Revolution Studios’ latest, xXx: State of the Union, as sponsored by Always was a little…disturbing. Pantene is all over the site; Sony, Sony Pictures, and Microsoft are also early advertisers.
It’s fascinating that MTV went this route but hasn’t done VoD. Execs told Jupiter that was an easy decision – the broadband audience is just so much bigger, and advertising is easier to pull off. [David Card]