Sony Pictures Sponsors CNN Video Podcasts

Sony Pictures is the first major studio to sponsor video podcasts, inking a deal to sponsor CNN's offerings.

Someone, somewhere must be able to prove that other people, someplace else are watching video podcasts, because Sony Pictures just became the first major movie studio to sign onto a video podcast as a sponsor.

Sony Pictures will promote its upcoming football flick Gridiron Gang with pre-roll advertisements embedded in all CNN video podcasts, including Reliable Sources (based on the television offering of the same name) and an upcoming series on health topics hosted by Sanjay Gupta. Sony Pictures also plans to bolster the campaign with traditional banner ads.

CNN, a unit of Time Warner, began its video podcasting operations in June, and claims to have served more than 4 million video podcasts a month since then, and double that number including audio-only podcasts. Sony was apparently attracted to the deal by CNN’s podcast demographics, and a perceived correlation between video podcast watchers and movie-goers.

(Perhaps because, obviously, anyone with enough time to watch video podcasts must also be so bored they’ll go to a movie every once in a while? We’re just speculating…)