Anheuser-Busch's expensive experiment with interactive Internet marketing, Bud TV, has attracted more controversy than viewers, so the company is working to try to revive its $30-million online venture.

Online Media Daily reported June 1 that the brewer has hired consulting firm New Media Strategies to try to get a better handle on what Internet users want from Bud TV, which launched three months ago. Unique users of the site fell 40 percent in March, to 152,000, while April site traffic was too low to be measured.

"We have to engage consumers better than we have," said Jim Schumacher, who heads the digital marketing team for Anheuser-Busch. "We should have had shorter content right out of the gate -- the 'wow' stuff that generates a lot of buzz ... The odds of making it a come-and-view situation could have worked, but not with a high probability. We should have understood the whole architecture of the Internet from a marketing standpoint."

New Media Strategies will monitor blogs, discussion groups, and other online media to determine consumer desires and "buzz" surrounding Bud TV.

Plans call for shorter media clips on Bud TV, more effort to circulate content outside the site, and more social-networking opportunities for users of the branded digital-entertainment network.

Company chairman August Busch IV recently said that Bud TV would "probably fade," sparking even more questions about the network's future.