Walt Disney Co. and Cox Communications Inc. are planning an experiment in Orange County this fall to gauge whether people who have advertising-skipping technology are really willing to watch commercials.The trial program, unveiled Tuesday, will give Cox's 250,000 cable subscribers in the county the option of watching episodes of four shows on Disney's ABC network — "Ugly Betty," "Grey's Anatomy," "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" — through Cox's video-on-demand service. Certain college football games also will be made available.
The shows and games won't cost anything but also won't be free of commercials, because Cox will disable the fast-forward feature that lets on-demand viewers zip through the ads.
Television executives will be watching closely. They have been scrambling to find ways to protect more than $60 billion a year in advertising revenue as audiences for their shows shrink and as more consumers become comfortable watching shows on their own terms and time schedules.
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