During upfront week, it can sometimes seem as if television networks trip over one another to show off their new-media prowess.
But they have good reason to do so. They want to remind advertising buyers that despite all the talk about Web video, television reaches many more people and for longer periods of time — putting the “broad” in broadcasting.
At Fox’s presentation on Monday afternoon, the network said that its shows now had a combined 230 million fans on social networking Web sites, up from 150 million at this time last year.
Peter Rice, the chairman of the Fox Networks Group, seemed to take special delight in a chart that compared the audience and the online attention for Netflix’s original series “Lilyhammer” and Hulu’s “Battleground” to Fox’s shows. The new Netflix and Hulu shows were dwarfed by TV franchises like “American Idol” and “New Girl.”
The implicit criticism of those Web shows was especially notable because Hulu is partly owned by Fox’s parent company, News Corporation.
Fox also emphasized at its upfront that it sold online as well as television eyeballs. On screen, at one point, was a pie chart that showed viewership of “New Girl,” a one-year-old sitcom, among adults ages 18 to 49, the sweet spot for marketers. According to the graph, 80 percent viewed the show on traditional television, either live or sometime later with a digital video recorder. Another 17 percent viewed the show via a legal online stream like Hulu’s. And 3 percent viewed it via a distributor’s video-on-demand system.
Fox sells ad packages that will place an advertiser in all three formats.
Fox did not repeat NBC’s suggestion earlier in the day that advertisers consider counting all commercials seen within a week of a show’s premiere, instead of the three-day compromise that is in place now. But Toby Byrne, the president of advertising sales for the Fox network, made a point of mentioning two ways to watch Fox shows that did not allow ad-skipping: cable video-on-demand systems and viewing via the Xbox 360.
“We’ll have more opportunities for your messages to travel with us,” he said, adding, “with the fast-forwarding button disabled.”
Mr. Rice later announced a new unit within Fox, internally named the Fox Bridge, that will help advertisers create social media campaigns, branded environments and apps.
Mr. Rice said the unit would also “track the social activity of our shows 24/7.”