Google, Viacom Combine On Internet TV

(CBS) TV on the internet just took one big step. A network and an internet giant are giving web surfers a new way to watch a sitcom.

It seems against the grain. A commercial network putting a show online, commercial-free, and letting people watch it for a week. But it's what UPN, owned by the same company, Viacom, that owns CBS 5, and Google are doing.

The companies have struck a deal that allows the Mountain View Internet search giant firm to show the entire first episode of UPN's sitcom ``Everybody Hates Chris'' on its Web site.

How come?

John Sobel, an executive with CBS Digital Media, says the move is good for viewer and good for the show. ”We're very excited about the opportunity to put shows we know people want to see in a convenient place for them to see it.”

Jeff O'Brien, who covers media for Wired magazine, says the move is a business decision. "We're in a very uncertain time in terms of TV advertising. That right now the Googles and Yahoos and Viacoms of the world are looking for partners and trying to figure this out, ‘What's next for us.’"

The ground is shifting under commercial TV. The old model of watching favorite shows during prime time is fading. Now it's favorite shows either on demand, or on tape, even commercial free via TiVo. Now begins the next step, via the internet.

Observers expect this is only the beginning. People talk of shows produced exclusively for the internet, just as now TV shows bypass broadcast and show up on cable. And they expect ads.

Neither Google nor Viacom will talk about the terms of the deal, but they do talk about "revenue models."

“Increasingly you are seeing the more and more desirable young people leading their lives on line," says O’Brien. "What you're having is this aggregation of eyeballs that used to only happen on TV. That's where the advertisers want to be. Where the eyeballs are."



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