Why does Madison Avenue have to beg its way into Web videos?

Hulu, the Web-video venture of NBC Universal and News Corp., reached nearly 900,000 visitors last month, according to Compete. Too bad that its 15-second ads and spots spliced into the middle of videos aren't where ad agencies want to spend their clients' money. They want to spend it the way LonelyGirl15's backers do — on product placements. "Just placing ads like prerolls are not a big interest to us, frankly," Digitas EVP Carl Fremont told Silicon Alley Insider. "That's just taking the old TV model and adapting it to a new screen. We would rather work with a producer and develop custom content." Which, of course, is the even older TV model — the one that led Procter & Gamble to invent the soap opera.