Let’s see.  It’s been a hard day at work and I head home for dinner, a Bud and Bud.TV.

I don’t think so.  And apparently neither do the 100,000 other people who bailed out of Bud.TV’s struggling online network, one month after it launched with an underwhelming 253,000 visitors in February. Anheuser-Busch is said to have spent between $20 million and $30 million to launch the site, and hopes to have 2 to 3 million visitors a month by early next year.

AdAge.com opines that the 40% drop in traffic at Anheuser-Busch’s site is due to the online form on the launch page, which verifies your name, age, zip code and gives you a user name and a password.  That’s silly.  People fill out oodles more to sign up for free MySpace or Amazon accounts.  It took me five minutes to fill out Ad Age’s own online reg form — and they made me fill in my address, company, job title and check a box not to receive the magazine’s email propaganda.

There are two reasons why people aren’t going to Bud.TV.  One is tepid content.  A hackneyed show about fake celebrities, interviews with Sports Illustrated swimsuit models and a "Bud Light daredevil" who orders pizzas using only the words "large" and "yes," is not exactly compelling content.

But the more important reason why the site is bombing is that people just don’t want to watch a TV channel run by a beer company.  Especially when it features the same kind of beery spots you see in Bud Light commercials.

Imagine if NBC started selling beer in grocery stores.  You think that would sell?

Advertisers are advertisers for a reason.  It’s because they need to bounce off content consumers really want to see to get their attention.

Now, you could argue that a few advertisers really are in the content business, say BMW Films.  But they’re really not.  BMW’s critically acclaimed Internet short film series featured the work of famous directors like John Woo, Ridley Scott and John Frankenheimer.  BMW wrapped itself in their notoriety, the way any good advertiser does.  But it didn’t produce the films.

Had Bud done its site that way, leaving the programming to programmers, Bud.TV might have had a chance.  As it is, I predict it will end its life as a mere belch in the history of Internet programming.

See Also

• Traffic Plummets at Struggling Bud.TV
• Beer Site Hobbled by Barriers to Easy Access and Shareable Content

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