IMedia said that though it did not download "cookies" or other information to computer hard drives, it had devised a mechanism that helps tracks usage by customers with broadband computer hookups. The company then uses a complex formula to estimate overall disc usage.
That information showed that readers inserted the first disc a total of 302,000 times, the Morning News and IMedia said. The following month, a second disc got 321,000 viewings and the third disc is on track to get 285,000 or more, according to the Morning News. Users spent an average of 18 minutes with the first CD and averaged 22 minutes with the second and third CDs, IMedia reported.
"We have gone up and down a little bit but, overall, the audience looks like it is sustaining more than 285,000 sessions, which is very, very good," said the Morning News' Heller.
From 11,500 to 21,000 users per month have clicked through from the CD to other Internet sites, IMedia said.
The discs will get a wider distribution beginning in October, when the New York Daily News, the nation's fifth-largest daily paper, plans to package the CDs in its Sunday paper, which has a circulation of 781,000.
Joe Stella, vice president of entertainment and travel advertising at the Daily News, said the paper had high hopes for the video insert and planned to promote it heavily. "It's attractive," Stella said. "It's something free for our readers that is of value."
IMedia produces the "Hollywood Previews" content in house, largely using free video from studios, which are happy to have another platform to promote their films.
An introductory segment on the CDs is meant to give viewers the impression they are flying into Los Angeles, before walking down the red carpet for a Hollywood premiere. A menu then opens -- offering the variety of choices from games to a link for the newspaper's website.
As they click through the selections, viewers must either click past or stop at a welter of video and banner advertising. The Morning News' Heller acknowledged that too many ad stops could become "cumbersome" and that the newspaper and IMedia "are still working to figure out the best user experience we can get."
MacEachern, 50, a former professional trumpeter who played with Sly and the Family Stone and other big-name acts, co-founded IMedia with Scott Kapp, 45, his former partner in a Los Angeles advertising agency. The duo first used CDs to help suppliers market their products to buyers at Wal-Mart. IMedia also produced a CD that helped Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman promote his policies. And another disc, delivered by mail, touted a Las Vegas hotel.
