TVSquad

Entertainment Weekly Subscribers in New York and Los Angeles were treated to 40 minutes of video promoting the CBS fall lineup right in the pages of the magazine's Fall Preview this week, as Bob reported last month. But this groundbreaking movie got me thinking about how this technology could be used.

It's a potentially great development for the print medium. The player in EW is interactive, meaning that as you press on the page it's embedded in it responds. Click on The Big Bang Theory and you'll see the preview of the new season on that show. All those people who abandoned print for the interactive experience online can now get that in their favorite magazines as well.

The technology is a brilliant way for an advertisement to reach out to an even wider audience. These little players can be stuck just about anywhere, and loaded with 40 minutes or so of playback. Imagine picking up that DVD set of a TV show you've heard about and being able to watch clips of it right there.

You could see interviews from the cast and crew, clips and montages from the series and so much more. It sure beats looking for that big video screen and scanning it for a minute and a half clip. This technology could even be used to promote the new fall slates in checkout lanes at grocery stores. It would be easy enough to load up the players with new content.

I don't know how inexpensive this all is, but if Entertainment Weekly can throw it into a magazine for free, even on a trial basis like this, I suspect it's pretty cheap. Right now, they're a great way to promote a television show.

With 40 minutes or so of video you can offer entire episodes right inside the pages of your favorite entertainment magazine. Fans don't need to have an iPod or even get online to see it. Hell, if they wanted to make a scene, they could just stand there in the store and watch the whole damned thing, at least until the battery dies down.

If you're having trouble getting those butts in front of your shows, why not put the shows where they are? Or mail it straight to them. I've embedded a clip from a newscast talking about the technology, and showcasing its use in EW and other venues to get your synapses firing. How would you use it?