Ads key as publishers move online

Magazine publishers are still trying to figure out how to monetise their digital content. The solutions are still fairly traditional, however. Five years from now, cost-per-thousand impressions will still be the norm, according to 39 per cent of top-level media executives who responded to a survey by Accenture in the first quarter of 2007.

Cost-per-action, or cost-per-transaction, was the second choice, favored by 21 per cent. Cost-per-click, a model that has come under much more scrutiny in 2007 in light of advertisers’ concerns about click fraud on the major search engines, was still anticipated as a viable business model by 12 per cent of respondents.

Exposure time, also known as stickiness, was proposed by nine per cent of the media executives, indicating that they took online content seriously enough to make it the basis of their business model.

When it comes to advertising online, these respondents overwhelmingly chose the mainstream media portals (86 per cent) as one of the top three areas on which they will spend the majority of their digital ad budgets.

The next two choices, user-generated content and social networking sites (41 per cent and 38 per cent, respectively) indicate these executives grasp what it means to be on the internet and that interaction with content is key for visitors.

Emerging platforms such as mobile and video gaming received stronger votes of confidence in this survey than in ones taken in other industries.

Xbox Live to sport ESPN content

ESPN is the latest media company bringing its content to the mostly young male aud of Microsoft's Xbox Live.

Disney-owned sports net is bringing a broad array of sporting events and programming to the service, through which users can download video onto the Xbox 360 vidgame console.

Content going to Xbox Live includes college football and basketball games, Summer X Games, "The World Series of Poker" and videogame reality show "Madden Nation."

All of the programming also is available for download on Apple's iTunes. A small portion of the video, including NCAA games, will be available to download in high definition via Xbox Live, which is the only digital download service with high-def content.

"Establishing this relationship with Microsoft on Xbox 360 provides an innovative way to reach our target demographic," said Matt Murphy, senior veep of digital video distribution for Disney and ESPN Media Networks.

ESPN sibling the Walt Disney Studios started making its movies available for digital rental on Xbox Live this summer. Other media companies on the service include CBS, MTV Networks, New Line, Paramount and Warner Bros.