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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

‘Supernatural’ to debut online ahead of TV

Lynn Elber Associated Press

The new WB series “Supernatural” is debuting online before it airs on television – another sign of broadcast TV’s increasingly aggressive promotional schemes.

Yahoo! users will be able to stream the first episode for a week leading up to next Tuesday’s premiere of the show, about two brothers who encounter evil forces as they search for their missing father.

Details about “Supernatural” also will be sprinkled throughout Yahoo!, including on its heavily trafficked home page.

With WB lacking the heftier on-screen promotional strength of the bigger and more established CBS, ABC and NBC networks, so-called “guerrilla” marketing tactics are especially vital, said David Janollari, the network’s entertainment president.

“You have to scream really loud and really compel the audience to choose your show over the array of other shows being presented to them at the same time,” Janollari said. “You have to find nontraditional ways to reach the audience.”

Streaming a show online before its TV debut was something WB inaugurated last year with its drama “Jack & Bobby.” The network believes the pre-broadcast exposure on America Online helped boost its initial audience, although the show couldn’t hold viewers and was canceled.

For a horror series like “Supernatural,” designed to appeal to young adult viewers 12 to 34, debuting online makes sense, according to Janollari.

“That’s where they’re living,” he said of the target audience.

Among the other offbeat promotional efforts for “Supernatural”:

• At 500 cafes in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, coffee cup sleeves inscribed with a spooky image drawn in thermal ink that appears when the beverage heats up the cup.

• Promotional messages on bar mirrors, in video game stores and movie theaters, with “Supernatural” napkins and coasters in hundreds of bars in the top 10 TV markets.

• “Supernatural” signs on tops of gas pumps and hoses at stations in seven markets.

• Rubber glow-in-the-dark bracelets distributed in front of movie theaters in New York and Los Angeles.

The major networks also are going beyond the traditional on-air promos, radio ads and billboards. ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” made a splash last year with dry-cleaning bags touting the series and is repeating the tactic in selected markets, this time throwing in an occasional free T-shirt.