Caught Stealing: Fox Turns to VOD to Hype New Show

Broadcasters aren’t willing to dive into the VOD pool, but they’ll get their feet wet if it works to their advantage. First up is Fox Broadcasting. With the MLB playoffs and World Series throwing its entertainment schedule out of whack, it’s turned to 2 of the biggest distributors-Comcast and DirecTV-to help promote new series "Prison Break." Fox is making available on VOD some 30mins of Prison Break bonus material, including cast interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and clips. Comcast will make the material available on VOD; DirecTV will do so on SVOD (of course, DirecTV’s ‘VOD’ is via DVR). The TV series debuted to promising ratings back in Aug, but is on hiatus during baseball. Given Prison Break’s involved story arc, the broadcaster wanted to keep momentum rolling during a month of baseball. The move is significant because the only previous VOD content the broadcaster offered was more than 2 years ago, in a now-defunct experiment with Cablevision. Fox says there’s no plan to offer complete episodes via VOD, though it is open to further VOD promotions. "We’ll take a look at how successful this is; these are very special circumstances," a Fox exec says. He wasn’t sure why the material wasn’t offered to more operators. The package is part of a bigger push for Prison Break that includes 1-hr of bonus material for broadcast affiliates to air when they choose.