2 stories about the Drew Carey webcast

By , Inter@ctive Week
November 19, 1999 7:12 AM PT

This week's Webcast tied to ABC's "The Drew Carey Show" drew 1.9 million
viewers,
making it one of the largest Webcast events in Web history.

But anointing the Nov. 17 Webcast as the single largest multimedia event
online depends
mostly on how you do the counting.

The Web video -- produced by "Drew Carey" creator Bruce Helford and Warner
Bros.
Television and intended to be watched simultaneously with the on-air
broadcast of
Wednesday's "Drew Carey Show" episode -- was able to stagger its viewership
over three
separate airings of the television show in the Eastern, Mountain and Western
time zones of
the United States.

Consequently, it's difficult to make comparisons with previous Webcast
events. Online
broadcasts, such as February's online lingerie fashion show by Victoria's
Secret and
Broadcast.com that drew an estimated 1.4 million visitors, typically have
been one-shot live
events drawing all of their traffic during a single showing of the Webcast.

Figures detailing peak online viewership levels are not yet available. Warner
Bros. cobbled
together a network of online multimedia distribution companies to handle the
Nov. 17
Webcast's traffic, making it difficult to compile detailed viewership data
quickly, said Jim
Banister, executive vice president of Warner Bros. Online.

Warner Bros. contracted with a string of companies -- including Akamai
Technologies,
Enron, e-Media, Globex, iBeam Broadcasting, InterVU and Sandpiper Networks --
to carry
the Webcast feed. Because of the scattered nature of the distribution system,
it is hard to
tell how many users were blocked from accessing the video feed or to
determine how long
viewers stayed tuned in to the Webcast, Banister said.

Still, Warner Bros. officials are heartened by the early results and are
planning additional
online streaming events, including an online promotion for rock band
Metallica slated for
later this month.

"We are going to see exponential growth in the ability to do Web streaming
events,"
Banister said. "It's only going to get better and better and more refined."

11/19/1999 Daily Variety Page 6 Copyright 1999 Variety, Inc.

The first streaming Webisode of ABC laffer "The Drew Carey Show" from Warner
Bros. Online attracted nearly 2 million visits, capturing more viewers online
Wednesday night than most cable programming.

Warner Bros. Online also said Thursday it has inked a pact with actor Chris
O'Donnell to begin producing original content for its upcoming entertainment
hub Entertaindom, sometime in the next year.

While watching "Carey's" regularly scheduled TV show on ABC, Netizens also
used Microsoft's Windows Media Player to watch what happens inside Carey's
house when he's at work, including Ed McMahon failing to find Carey to hand
him a $1 million check, and dogs and ghosts throwing a bash inside the house.

Warner Bros. is using the Webcast to tease its new online streaming video
venture Entertaindom, which officially bows Nov. 29. Its event slate includes
a weeklong Netcast of the new Metallica album.

The "Drew Cam" sweeps event was exec-produced by Bruce Helford and produced
by Warner Bros. Online in association with Warner Bros. Television and
ABC.com.

Tech partners for the event included Akamai Technologies, Don Mischer
Technologies, E-Media, Enron Communications, Globix, Ibeam, InterVu,
SandPiper-Digital Island and Sonic Foundry Media Services.

"This is a television-Internet first," Warner Bros. Online exec VP Jim
Banister said. "Not only was the program entertaining and evolutionary in its
cross-media creative expression, it also gave birth to a new paradigm in how
to reach large audiences via streaming media."

Ratings for "Drew Cam" may have topped the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show and
MTV's NetAid events, which so far rank as the most watched video broadcasts
online.

Warner Bros. Online also said Thursday that O'Donnell has handed over
management of his Web fan sites to Warner Bros. home page community AcmeCity,
the latest example of an actor attempting to protect his image on the 'Net.

O'Donnell has 57,000 fansites on Yahoo! GeoCities, alone.

Warner Bros. will also help steer the official Web presence of O'Donnell's
George Street Pictures, which produced "The Bachelor" and the upcoming CBS
telepic "Miracle on the 17th Green."

O'Donnell said he will produce yet-to-be-determined programming for
Entertaindom in the coming year.

"I want to begin building a core audience of Internet-based fans today
because producing entertainment programming (online) will mean a lot more
than making movies in the future," O'Donnell said.