CBS Moving To Syndication Across the Internet

An anonymous reader writes "The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the new online media strategy being rolled out by CBS. Just over a year ago they rolled out their 'Innertube' service on the CBS website. The streaming video offering allowed viewers to watch sports and reruns directly on the web, but required potential consumers to view the video on CBS.com. That didn't work, even a little bit. So, they've learned their lesson: 'The company plans to pursue a drastically revised strategy that involves syndicating its entertainment, news and sports video to as much of the Web as possible. It represents a stark departure for the TV industry. Most of CBS's major competitors, including Walt Disney Co.'s ABC, General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal and News Corp.'s Fox, are to some degree all betting that they can build their own Internet video portals. Starting this week, an expanded menu of CBS's video content will be available for free to consumers on as many as 10 different Web sites ranging from Time Warner Inc.'s AOL to Joost Inc., a buzzy online video service that is just rolling out. The company calls its new venture the CBS Interactive Audience Network.' This new push is tied into a new advertising strategy, which is covered in-depth in the article."

Comments

Re:The last horse crosses the finish line

[Anonymous Coward]

Name 1? Most networks are trying to create their own portals. Largely because, as they mention in the article, they all have huge cable channels to support as well. This is something that CBS is relatively free of since they only have one (or two) cable networks to their name.

Instead of investing potentially millions into creating their own service, they are going to offer programs for syndication to various sites on the web. It sounds to me like they are holding to a traditional idea of selling shows, but instead of selling them to cable networks, they are going to sell them to the internet media channels for distribution through the internet (probably as streaming feeds).

So actually, this is actually a first in a way and not a last. Good job with RTFA.

Re:The last horse crosses the finish line

[CastrTroy]

investing potentially millions

I think that most networks have have invested way more than millions in these internet portals. hire 20 people (which isn't a lot for these large corporations), and you're probably already spending over 1 million dollars. Money for servers, bandwidth, and all the other hosting fees (electicity, heating, building maintenance costs), and i'm sure that they've spent a whole lot more than necessary, and haven't really gotten much out of it. I think this is a great approach for CBS. Sell the content to other companies who understand distribution, and you will get a lot more bang for your buck.