In an online content deal likely to be the most expensive yet produced exclusively for the Web, Mountain View, California-based Internet giant Google will use its AdSense advertising network to show a new animated series by Seth MacFarlane, the creator of the popular "Family Guy" television series broadcast on the Fox network.

The experimental syndication, which Google first announced in August 2007, will see MacFarlane's new program split into 50 short two-minute episodes and distributed to thousands of Web sites most likely to be popular destinations among the mostly young and male audience targeted by the Emmy award-winning screenwriter and actor.

By using AdSense -- a method Google has typically utilized for targeted text advertisements -- to syndicate an original Web-only show, the search leader will for the first time bring video content created by a high-profile Hollywood celebrity to those consumers most likely to be fans, rather than creating a Web site to house the new show and attempting to drive online audiences there.

A Cavalcade Of AdSense Expansion

The project has been called "Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy," and was set to debut in September with millions of dollars in financial production backing from several Hollywood film creditors, according to a report in The New York Times.

The Google AdSense system will distribute video episodes of "Cavalcade" instead of its usual simple text ads, and will include advertising sold by the exclusive Hollywood-based financing company Media Rights Capital (MRC). Each episode will allow advertisers to include either a prefacing "pre-roll" ad that viewers would see before being able to watch a segment of the MacFarlane show, or a simple message of sponsorship, also aired before each of the 50 episodes. Advertisers for the Web series, which have not yet been named by Google, MacFarlane or MRC, will also have the option to display a banner ad below each episode, according to the Times report.

In addition to producing digital projects such as the forthcoming "Cavalcade," MRC is an independent film and television creation studio that has backed film projects such as "The Box," starring Hollywood actress Cameron Diaz and television programming on The CW network, combining to invest some $400 million in projects annually. MRC signed a multiyear deal with Fox earlier this year valued at least $100 million.

Testing A Four-way Revenue Sharing Program

Advertisers are expected to share revenue generated from ad clicks relating to the project with MRC, Google, 34-year-old MacFarlane, and the owners of Web sites where the ad clicks originated, a system MRC and Google believe could generate significant money.

MacFarlane has also worked alongside several advertisers to create animated ads in the style of "Cavalcade" which will run with some episodes, an extra tie-in service he chose to provide for an additional fee. Google and MacFarlane said that some of the advertising deals signed for the new online series are as large as the AdSense program has had since it began in 2003, according to the Times piece.

The Web series is expected to eventually see a DVD release, and if successful could expand into an animated movie or television show.

In May Google tested a similar original content delivery method, when it entered into an agreement with The Washington Post that saw the search leader's AdSense Content Network used to display real estate listings from the newspaper's online property, however the "Cavalcade" project to debut the fall is expected to be much larger in scope, according to the Times report.

Moving Away From The Reach Of FCC Restrictions

Online video ads have often been more successful than traditional text or so-called display ads, and Google is expected to charge considerable more for the new AdSense spots that will run with MacFarlane's new series.

Google AdSense director of sales and operations Kim Malone Scott told the Times, "We feel that we have recreated the mass media."

As online video audiences continue to grow, driven in part by traditional television writers' strikes in the United States, Google and MacFarlane hope to use the "Cavalcade" series as a way to test the distribution of new material with AdSense, and the creator of "The Family Guy" also hopes having an online audience will free him from some of the creative restrictions he encountered working in traditional television.

"I just felt I could be a lot more honest on the Internet," MacFarlane said in the Times piece, noting also that he had previously encountered some of the limits on inappropriate language and acceptable situations imposed by the Federal Communications Commission.

At one of the most popular online discussion forums for webmasters, WebmasterWorld.com, one of the Internet's oldest hangouts for the technically savvy people that help run the Web, Google's partnership with MacFarlane and expansion of the AdSense program was met with skepticism by some, including one member using the handle "StoutFiles." "Most people won't sit through a 15-second pre-roll clip for a 20-second video clip, especially when other sites are giving away the same video with no ads," the member wrote. At least one of the new MacFarlane series episodes runs as short as 38 seconds.

Google AdSense To Expand With Original Video Series From "Family Guy" Creator

In February Google introduced its AdSense for Video project, which sported agreements with some 20 high-profile partner Web companies including Brightcove and YuMe, that were aimed at allowing Google to sell the new video ads on third-party sites throughout the Web where it doesn't host or create its own videos.

Of some $20 billion spent each year on Internet advertising in the United States, only a relatively small amount is presently used to buy Web video ads, with the large majority of Google's 2007 $16.6 billion ad sale revenue coming from sales of small text-based ads shown alongside search results and on its ad network.

Over the past two years Google has expanded its advertising ambitions to include such traditional media as radio, television and newspapers, along with several new ad formats for mobile devices and the Web, but has yet to see any of them bring in strong revenue, according to the firm's annual reports.

Google's long-awaited expansion in the online video advertising space with the "Cavalcade" project and AdSense for Video program could provide a boost for a segment already experiencing explosive growth.

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