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

Some things come to mind...

[GeorgiaCodeMonkey]

A couple things come to mind when I see stuff like this... #1, Cable TV and Satellite services are going to go extinct. (Good.) #2, As more and more networks start to "broadcast" online, ISPs are going to have their hands full. The move to cap users who download too much (too combat bittorrent) is going to have to stop. Quickly.

Thank you!

[copponex]

I hardly watch any television. The days of sitting around and waiting for your favorite show to come on are simply over, and I don't want to spend $40 a month plus $15 a month for Tivo just for the pleasure. It's simply not worth it.

Instead of litigating viewers and websites, it appears CBS may "get it." I hope they follow through with their plan without a team of lawyers getting a hold of it and ruining it entirely. CBS should be congratulated, and we should all vote with our eyes and reward them for recognizing that the Internet has changed entirely the meaning and value of media distribution.

And I must say, it's about time American companies stopped trying to sue their way to success and innovate instead. Real business leadership needs to return to our economy before there's nothing left but corporations suing each other over worthless patents and dead ideas.

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.

But will it run on Linux?

[TemporalBeing]

All joking aside - and quite seriously - will it run in a web browser on Linux? I'd rather not have a TV and be able to get to video clips (like the President's State of the Union address) over the Internet. Last I checked, the major networks (CBS, ABC, AOL, etc.) were using tech that relied on Windows Media Puke to play, thus I couldn't watch it from my Linux PC. (Even Yahoo! does that with their YouTube/GoogleVideo equivalent, so I stay away from it.) Really that is probably part of the success behind YouTube and GoogleVideo - it runs on any platform without a problem. Running Mac? No problem. Running Linux? No problem. Running Windows? No problem.

So, will CBS's new syndication system run on Linux? If so, great - I'll be there to watch it. If not, too bad; guess I'll have to wait.