We'll laugh at this headline in the not so distant future, but for the first time, buying a 30-second ad during a Fox broadcast of The Simpsons costs less than buying the same ad on Hulu.
Television broadcast ads during The Simpsons cost $20-$40 per thousand viewers. On the web, the rate jumps to $60.
Shows like The Simpsons and CSI are now commanding higher ad rates on Hulu and TV.com than on television. It's a byproduct viewers being twice as likely to recall web ads than TV ads, according to Neilsen. (Which I would argue is a byproduct of Hulu showing us far fewer ads.)
But before we all declare TV dead, remember that Hulu has only 37 seconds of ads per "30-minute" show while a Fox broadcast includes a whopping 9 minutes of sales pitches. So there's still technically more money in TV, which will change as soon as Hulu begins cramming 9 minutes of ads into each program.
