The Daily Swarm

At its upfront, MTV will be telling advertisers that these techniques — which are called “podbusting” because they break up commercial pods with content that is almost indistinguishable from the entertainment programming — have greatly enhanced viewer engagement with the commercials and their retention of the ads’ messages.

“The results are amazing,” Hank Close, the president for sales at MTV Networks, said in a telephone interview that previewed his sales pitch to the advertisers. “In many of these messages we’re seeing 100 percent retention.” MTV Networks wants to attract more advertisers based on the success of these experiments.

“We are increasingly being asked by advertisers to create messages for audiences in our own voice,” Mr. Close said.

The cable television company is promoting podbusting as a way to persuade viewers not to skip over or drift away from the advertising that interrupts the programs — an increasingly crucial aspect of the television business where the price of advertising is now being measured in how many people are watching the commercials, not the shows.

“We’re looking to redefine the commercial experience,” said John Shea, who runs the integrated marketing division for MTV and VH1.

Dario Spina, who handles the same job for MTV’s entertainment channels like Comedy Central and Spike, said of countering the digital video recorder, “That’s the idea here; we want to blur the lines between the commercial breaks and the entertainment content.”