Marketers are increasingly combining online video and television advertising strategies as they get a better understanding of their audience - with the most recent example being the CW.

The show plans to double the number of commercials it airs in web versions of its TV shows beginning next season. Viewers could see as many as 20 30-second ads per hour, up from about 10 per hour currently, according to MediaBuyerPlanner.

Because the CW is increasingly seeing more of its audience go online, the hope is that by making the number of online ads match those on TV, the network will be able to sell combined web and TV audiences in more lucrative packages during the upfront, writes the Wall Street Journal.

Other Examples

Other examples include a new spot called "The Next Round Served Up by Jim Beam," a web series for Jim Beam bourbon that ESPN plans to introduce on April 4 (via the New York Times). The webisodes will be on ESPN.com, while excerpts will appear during "SportsCenter" on the ESPN cable channel at 11 pm. "We feel very strongly that video is video," said Ed Erhardt, president for the ESPN customer marketing and sales unit of ESPN.

Then there is Unilever's "Into the Heart of Italy" - a web series with commercials running on ABC. One spot appeared during the Academy Awards earlier this month, according to the Times, and a second on an episode of "Desperate Housewives."

Web Viewers Say They Would Accept More Ads

These developments mirror trends highlighted in a comScore study that found that online video viewers would be willing to accept two to three more minutes of ads on top of the four minutes of commercials typically shown for every hour of programming on sites like Hulu.

As conventional wisdom has it, 38% of people who use online streaming say they do so because it has fewer ads. But by far the majority of viewers - 71% - say they use video streaming primarily because it lets them view shows they missed on television. 67% of respondents said they watch via the web because it is convenient.