Online Media Cultist

It makes sense to me that if there’s a good and worthy video to watch online, that it’s fair to sit through a video ad or two. Some people balk at this notion, but I’m fine with it.

This has been on my mind over the last few weeks as there’s been a number of announcements heralding full episodes of television being made available online to coincide, I suppose, with the kickoff of the fall television season. IMDB, for example, has announced that it’s making some shows and movies available, though it still has a long way to go to be any kind of a destination for that specific activity.

Hulu remains a pretty good default destination to check out television shows in particular, with a fairly wide variety of offerings on tap. A full length of episode of Kitchen Nightmares, for instance, will serve a very short preroll ad and then about four midroll ads of about 30 seconds in length apiece, ending with a final postroll. For the opportunity to watch a 42-minute episode, this is a strong model from the user experience perspective. And don’t forget that a quick break in the online realm gives you a great excuse to obsessively check your e-mail or RSS reader or 101 million other things!

Now, not everyplace delivers the same sterling experience. Intrigued by learning that the new season of Survivor is premiering this week, I was interested to see that CBS offers a ton of full length episodes of the show on its own online presence.

I’ve actually never watched a single episode of Survivor on television, so I figured that this would give me a great means to see what all the fuss is about. Unfortunately, I wound up being more frustrated – by technical issues with the video player – than intrigued. While the format and set-up in terms of content and video advertising is very similar to the Hulu model, the CBS video player often hits a fatal snag or loop when midroll video ads kick in.

Long story short: when the commercials start, the show never comes back, or at times the final segment of the show begins… even if you’ve only begun watching an episode! The typical experience is that you end up in a looping video advertisement hell. To add insult to injury, even doing something as innocuous as pausing the video can bring your viewing experience to a frustrating end.

It’s possible that I dropped in on CBS.com during a unusually buggy day. I’ve been involved enough in online production and site and feature launches to know that the highest profile sites in the world can have insane problems from time to time.

But I was still left with a bad first impression. A good rule of thumb is: if you’re going to have video advertisements, make sure you bring the show back after “these words from our sponsor”!