With ABC gearing up to puts episodes of shows such as Desperate Housewives online for free, more details have emerged about how it will operate, including the fact that the episodes' advertisements will be interactive to encourage people to watch them.

"It's a new and different ad model," said Alan Ives, vice president of interactive sales for ABC. "We got some pretty creative stuff. If you had unlimited time and interactivity to get your message across, what would you do?" According to InformationWeek, "each online episode will kick off with a 10-second sponsorship message from a single advertiser and will feature one commercial from that sponsor per commercial break."

The site reported that there would also be less breaks in the program. "Commercials from each advertiser will cycle through an episode every time it is viewed online, meaning that different commercials could appear each time the show was watched online. Only three of the five commercial breaks built into episodes for broadcast television will be used in the online model."

Tests on the system will begin May 1, and Housewives, Alias, Commander in Chief and Lost will be part of the trial.

Meanwhile, video-on-demand is heading to the UK with Channel 4. According to Scotsman.com, Channel 4 will air shows such as Housewives and Lost via internet streaming and cable company NTL for 99p ($1.75) per episode. But the episode would only be watchable for 24 hours, unlike the iTunes service in the US where a user can buy an episode permanently for a similar price. However Channel 4 could be stopped by OFCOM, and Channel 4 concedes the regulator could "affect our plans to launch [video on demand] by the end of the year."

The original articles can be found at InformationWeek and Scotsman.com.

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