Fox Expands Test of Ads, ‘American Idol’ Running Simultaneously
Viewers of “American Idol” last night may have had to rub their eyes during certain moments in the program: Were those TV commercials running at the same time as segments from the program?
In an expansion of an experiment begun last season, the 21st Century Fox-owned broadcast outlet is running more advertising in “Idol” that appears even as action from the program continues on the screen. The technique, which Fox calls a “double box,” because it shows ad and program on-screen simultaneously in two separate graphic “boxes,” borrows a page from sports broadcasts from Time Warner’s Turner, Walt Disney’s ESPN and Fox Sports in an effort to keep viewers from channel surfing or fast-forwarding past the ads with a DVR.
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