The Internet represents the media industry's future. But as big media companies move to get more TV programming online, they're increasingly reaching back to the past.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2008
CBS (nyse: CBS - news - people ) said Thursday it is posting full-length episodes of some of CBS Paramount Television's most valuable archive properties online, including the first three seasons of Star Trek and the first seasons of Melrose Place and Hawaii Five-O. All episodes will carry advertising and can be accessed for free at Time Warner's (nyse: TWX - news - people ) AOL, CNET Networks (nasdaq: CNET - news - people ), Bebo, Veoh and other CBS distribution partners.
"We're putting it out there to seed the new medium that is the Internet and see where that takes us,'' CBS Interactive President Quincy Smith said.
The move follows close on the heels of an announcement on Tuesday by General Electric's (nyse: GE - news - people ) NBC Universal that it will distribute episodes of Miami Vice, The A-Team, Kojak and other shows at NBC.com, SciFi.com and other NBC sites.
CBS and NBC are hardly alone in exploiting their archives. Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ) Pictures Television has been expanding online distribution of its popular Minisode Network, which features abbreviated episodes of shows like Charlie's Angels, The Partridge Family and Starsky & Hutch. FremantleMedia is preparing to expand its AtomicWedgieTV.com site to include humorous mash-ups of archived clips from Baywatch, The Price Is Right, Family Feud and other Fremantle shows.
And Warner Bros. Television Group, one of the first studios to post old shows on the Web through its In2TV site at AOL, is looking to expand In2TV in the second quarter and is expected to announce other new uses of archived programming in the coming months, according to Warner Bros. spokesman Scott Rowe. "The library product serves the same purpose as a new show,'' Rowe said. "It's all about aggregating eyeballs."
Unlike the world of syndicated television, where TV channels save their limited time slots for new shows or reruns that generate the largest audiences, the unlimited "shelf space" of the Internet provides studios with a viable platform to generate new revenue streams from both huge franchises like Star Trek and lesser hits like MacGyver, according to Mike Goodman, director of digital entertainment at the Yankee Group in Boston.
Another factor: advertiser interest in online video continues to grow faster than the audience for it. Posting classic TV shows, which already boast legions of fans provides TV studios with a relatively quick and easy way of capturing ad dollars, according to Rex Wong, chief executive of Dave Networks, an online video distribution company that works with CBS and Fremantle.
Studios have to clear some hurdles to move a show from a dusty warehouse shelf onto the Web, such as clearing the necessary Internet rights to any songs that play during an episode, Wong said. Still, he said he expects TV studios to become more active in seeking out Internet audiences for their old TV shows. "The Internet opens up entirely new fan bases,'' Wong said.
CBS' Smith couldn't agree more, saying that posting old shows online could create new fans and business opportunities not only in the U.S. but overseas as well. For instance, online exposure could, in an ideal scenario, lead to new syndication deals for CBS Paramount programming in foreign markets, Smith said.
"It's taking the full resources of content that CBS has at its disposal,'' he said.