Comcast Spotlight, the advertising sales arm of the US’s largest cable MSO, Comcast, has launched a free VOD service that provides viewers with information designed to help them decide whom to vote for in the upcoming elections. Dubbed "Elections 2006," the new service allows candidates to provide viewers with long-form political advertisements, ranging in length from two to thirty minutes. According to Comcast, the service is now available throughout its footprint of nearly 70 markets. It is accessed by selecting "Searchlight" from the MSO’s VOD menu (note: Searchlight is Comcast’s recently rebranded advertising-on-demand service, which, among other things, offers classified listings for jobs, real estate and cars). The first politician to take advantage of "Elections 2006" was Massachusetts lieutenant governor-candidate, Andrea Silbert, who placed a six-minute video on the service: "The On Demand platform allows us to provide greater detail in an unfiltered presentation not available through traditional media," Silbert said in a prepared statement. According to Comcast, research conducted by Scarborough Data of viewers who had used VOD over the past 30 days showed that 80% were registered to vote, and that 72% generally vote in statewide elections and 45.1% always vote in statewide elections. The MSO claims that its VOD service has generated 3 billion program views since 2004, and that in mature markets, over 75% of its digital customers have used the service in the past 90 days.
Originally Published: October 17, 2006 Part 3 in [itvt] Issue 7.00
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