Google has announced that it has teamed up with American cartoon creator, Seth MacFarlane - creator of the TV show 'Family Guy' - to create a brand new, web-exclusive animated series.
The new series, which will be titled 'Seth McFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy', will be distributed across the World Wide Web via Google's AdSense advertising platform. However, only predetermined websites will receive the series - thought to be those sites which are most likely to attract MacFarlane's preferred audience, according to the New York Times.
On these websites, instead of placing a traditional AdSense advertising window, Google will instead place a video clip belonging to the 'Cavalcade' series. Advertising will be included in the clips in different formats; in some, there will be a 'preroll' ad, which asks viewers to watch a short commercial similar to TV-style advertisements, while others may feature a banner ad at the bottom of the clip.
MacFarlane has created a number of new characters to star in the series, which will be made up of two 50-minute episodes, and will receive a percentage of the ad revenue generated from the cartoons. He will also earn a more substantial fee by working alongside advertisers to animate original commercials to run alongside the series.
Thus far, Google has only tentatively dabbled in distributing new content, but the partnership with Mr MacFarlane is a bold move that some Hollywood film financiers believe could yield massive returns should it be a success.
Google launched its AdSense program in 2003 and only late last year introduced its AdSense for video program. This allowed AdSense subscribers to display and make money from embedded video clips on their own websites, which were served from YouTube content partners and included targeted banner or text ads linked to the video content.
'Family Guy', which is broadcast on Fox, is something of a TV phenomenon, despite having been cancelled after three seasons due to poor ratings. However, in the face of continued strong DVD sales, Fox reversed their decision and the show has since gone on to be one of the biggest comedy hits on US television, as well as around the world.
'Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy' is set to appear on computer monitors around the world from September this year and will feature what McFarlane himself described in an interview with the New York Times as "animated versions of the one-frame cartoons you might see in The New Yorker, only edgier."
