“With broadband penetration becoming ubiquitous and more and more sites having this easy capability, people are expecting video to be there.”

“It actually works really well,” said Brian Quinn, the vice president and general manager of digital ad sales for The Journal’s digital network. A 15-second pre-roll “followed by two to five minutes of high-quality content is a fair-value exchange,” Mr. Quinn said.

SHOOT: Makes sense to me, with one exception. Cubicle slaves, people at work tend not to watch video.

clipped from www.nytimes.com CNN.com and ESPN.com are featuring video much more prominently on their home pages, often prompting visitors to press play before they begin to read. Even The Wall Street Journal has moved its video player front and center with a twice-a-day live newscast on WSJ.com. A major reason is commercial. At a time when other categories of advertising dollars are shrinking, video ads are booming. News sites are adding more video inventory to keep pace with the demands of advertisers, and benefiting from the higher cost-per-thousands, or C.P.M.’s, that ads on those videos command. The attention to video mirrors changes in how consumers are experiencing news. Major events — be it the presidential election or the death of Michael Jackson — bring a surge in video stream viewings by new users, and each time some of them stick around. Among Web sites operated by newspapers, The New York Times, Gannett and Tribune each reach more than a million viewers a month with video streams, comScore says.