Jun 24, 2008 6:02 AM, PROMO Xtra, By Richard Tedesco

Lifetime’s second season of “Army Wives” has hit the ground running, re-supplied with online content and a sweepstakes aimed at drawing fans in.

Online streaming is a prime catalyst in driving viewers to the site: Lifetime has seen a 1,200% increase in video streams year-to-year after the “Army Wives” first two episodes of its new season.

It drew nearly 2 million viewers among women age 25 to 54 for its initial two episodes.

“A lot of that is due to the show’s sophomore season,” Dan Suratt, Lifetime executive vice president of digital media & business development, said. “And there was a little bit of a cliffhanger from last season.”

The unfinished story involved an explosion in a bar where one of the show’s characters worked. The objective with the video is to enable fans to catch up with episodes they missed.

A sweepstakes planned for July with a Ford Mustang as grand prize also figures to boost online traffic, and a trivia game will also launch shortly.

Lifetime also posted a nine-minute video summary of last season’s action online at www.mylifetime.com/on-tv/shows/army-wives. Character pages provide background about the people the actors play.

This year, Lifetime is enabling an online community around the show, with a mini-site where fans can connect with each other and share photos and files.

“What we found last year through the message board is that there’s a community of Army wives who wanted to talk about how the impacted their lives and how it related to them,” Suratt said.

Lifetime will run 11 weekly episodes of “Army Wives” through the summer, with a hiatus in September preceding five more episodes starting in November.

So the community building is also intended to bridge the gap in the split season.

“The whole idea is to allow people to continue the connection with the community itself,” Suratt said.

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