This season Fox tried to change its advertising model up a bit by lessening the number of commercials shown during both Fringe and Dollhouse. The idea was that with commercial breaks lasting only 60 or 90 seconds, viewers wouldn’t change the channel so as to not miss the show’s return. It also meant viewers would be more likely to watch the commercials, and Fox could charge more for them. WARC reports that the experiment was a partial success, with audience retention* for the ad breaks increasing and Fox making up to 40% more per ad, but Fox has determined it wasn’t quite economically viable for continuation. Creatively, this also meant those shows had an additional seven minutes of time to tell their stories. For better or worse, when Fringe and Dollhouse (assuming its all but officially confirmed renewal is true) will go back to the industry standard of around 42 minutes an episode.
Fox does say that this experiment could be brought back for certain events, like one-off specials or film premieres. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a series premiere or finale get this treatment once in a while either.
*The report says rentention for these ad breaks rose to 92% from Fox’s 88% average. I’d love to see a study that goes beyond simply which channel was on the television for those breaks and showed the certain increase in viewers actually staying in the room and watching those commercials. I’m sure that had a much higher gain.
