Pop-up ads are rarely used anymore because they are universally hated. A common complaint on MySpace is the auto play for music. Firefox has add-ons that stop auto plays.
I am sure you have stats that show where your users originate their websurfing. Do you think autoplaying your noisy commercials are appreciated by anyone much less someone at work who may or may not be allowed to surf your site? Your commercials are typically louder than the typical YouTube videos. Loud noise usually cause a pattern interrupt and I am sure some are annoyed when this happens on your site.
Just as popups and forced registration annoy many, your site annoys me and I surf it much less than any other broadcast website. I check ESPN for Fantasy Basketball ideas. I have bookmarked that site because I don’t want to go through the two clicks where you autoplay a part of Sportscenter, the same part, on the first two pages. So where I may have learned something about what you have on your schedule tonight, I now skip it entirely and haven’t been to your main page in months.
ABC.com is worse because it seems that your videos play especially loud and because I don’t go there often I am usually caught of guard. You know the research of creating and maintaining pleasant emotions and rapport. These two sites fail miserably and bet you don’t stay inline with CBS. FOX and NBC don’t count because HULU.com takes some of their traffic.
