INVESTIGATING THE WORTH OF INTERNET ADVERTISING

research investigates the advertising potential of the Internet servic es offered by television stations. It develops a conceptual framework for assessing the benefit of such on-line services. The framework at t he core of the research, the 'On-line-Success-per-Programme-Typology', integrates programmes, success factors, and on-line services to provi de a basis for detailed investigation, To develop this framework, the paper analyses the interdependencies between audience share and progra mme-specific advertising income, hits on Web pages and Internet-specif ic advertising income, and hits and programme-specific advertising inc ome. Four critical success factors are identified: programme-specific factors 'contemporaneity', 'emotional tie' and 'individuality and inte ractiveness' and a non-programme-specific factor 'image', Then the imp ortance of these for different types of TV programmes is assessed. A n ew classification of TV on-line services is proposed which focuses on the unit of interest, be it station, channel, or programme. A model of the impact of on-line services on TV success factors is developed. Fr om this seven impact propositions are put forward, To demonstrate its management worth, the framework is applied to the on-line services of two German TV stations. The paper concludes with a critical assessment of the framework and raises questions for further research, (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd, All rights reserved.