Double the Ads, double the pleasure?

From AdAge:

ABC.com has started to peddle research that shows online viewers will tolerate shows such as "Grey's Anatomy" with ads from multiple sponsors, much like TV.

Albert Cheng, exec VP of Disney-ABC TV digital media group, talked about ABC's research, conducted by Nielsen Media Research, on a panel at this year's National Association of Television Program Executives conference in Las Vegas. ABC spokesperson Karen Hobson said the network is showing the data to agencies in hopes of getting them to buy into the concept.

......

The ABC/Nielsen research concluded that adding multiple sponsors per ad break had "a minimal effect" on recall and did not affect purchase consideration or ad attentiveness. ABC said the data show that doubling the number of ads within a show from four to eight "did not affect the viewers' overall experience with the ABC.com player."

Hm...there was a seminal paper written years ago (will try and find it on the web) showing how this incremental Ad Inflation initially gained revenues, but p*ssed of viewers - but not too much - so then there was a bit more Ad inflation, and a bit more. But all the time viewers were getting increasingly good at avoiding them.

People by and large don't like Ads, they only put up with them if the value of the exchange is higher than the friction of the Ads. Why, one wonders, will it change for Web TV once the novelty has worn off?