Video in Print? They Can Do That Now

The rains accompanying hurricane Bill have swept away the sultry humid air, today’s a Saturday morning with glorious temps…and a good time to read last night’s WSJ, where I found out about a video that’s being printed into a magazine.

CBS is promoting its fall TV shows by inserting a 2 1/4″ video screen that plays 40 minutes of clips from their TV shows. It’s a flat little panel made by a company called Americhip that will cost…well in the words of a CBS executive, “more than a can of Pepsi.”

Only Entertainment Weekly subscribers in New York and LA will get the hand-inserted ad but it will total thousands…what a concept! According to the story by Sam Schechner and Shira Ovide, this isn’t the first experiment with video in print. Esquire ran a cover with special screen and an inside ad that showed a Ford car moving down a road.