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CBS goes after Hulu by aligning with YouTube

By Tim Conneally, BetaNews

October 13, 2008, 11:57 AM

Though reports early last year said that a deal between CBS and Google for YouTube distribution had fallen by the wayside, the network's content will soon be available in full on the popular video site, complete with commercials.

Announcing on Friday that "Full-Length TV Dinners" would be coming to the Site, YouTube's team blog noted that it will naturally first be a test. Advertisements could be pre-, mid-, or post-roll, but will only appear in the premium full-length content. In our tests -- which, granted, only lasted a few minutes this morning -- we didn't see any overlaid advertising in premium content, though overlay ads do appear in "clips" from CBS shows (including the Evening News), which only last a few minutes.

YouTube will receive some classic Paramount shows that didn't actually ever appear on CBS, such as "Beverly Hills 90210," "MacGyver," and "Star Trek" in its recently-added "Theater View" mode -- a button just to the upper left of the video. Theater mode is a view extremely similar to video site Hulu, complete with a "Dim the lights" button.

NBCU and News Corp.'s Hulu, and similar sites such as Comcast's Fancast, and Time Warner's Veoh, offer content from across multiple US television networks. YouTube has until now not been classed with these sites, despite their purposes being intrinsically similar. As a repository for amateur videos, YouTube's mean production quality is much lower than those sites which only host professional content.

The "dim the lights" mode for the premium YouTube content viewer, now for CBS-owned content.

With the new "Dim the lights" mode for YouTube's premium content, a red curtain shows up to either side of the video, giving you more unimpeded access to the screen, the controls...and the sponsor.

The CBS Audience Network has been attempting to make content owned by CBS as broadly available as possible online, and by securing a position on the Web's most popular video destination with more than 300 million registered users, CBS has secured a strong potential source of advertising revenue.

Add a Comment (9 Comments)

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By Avion Airplane

posted Oct 14, 2008 - 7:12 AM

i like Hulu

Score: 0

By DawgDays

edited Oct 13, 2008 - 2:09 PM

So does this mean Viacom is going to drop its billion dollar lawsuit against Google? Seems pretty stupid to - on the one hand - sue Google for copyright infringement and on the other jump into bed with Google and broadcast your shows on YouTube.

Score: 0

By preinterpost

posted Oct 14, 2008 - 3:30 PM

Stupid? It's pure genius!

Score: 0

By artfuldodga

edited Oct 13, 2008 - 3:38 PM

oh.. "This video is not available in your country." **** CBS and Hulu, yeah I can work around it, but is this the kind of internet anyone should be promoting?

cut that 300 mil down a bit there betanews.

Score: 0

By artfuldodga

posted Oct 13, 2008 - 3:35 PM

For everyone or just US Consumers I wonder? I'm guessing just the US.

Score: 0

By Hellcat_M

posted Oct 13, 2008 - 2:38 PM

Hulu, Fancast and Veoh have almost the same content. Wynner3 Hulu is owned by NBC and newscorp so thats probably why CBS isn't going to put their shows on it. Yes it would be nice to have all shows from all networks on one site (or program) but thats not going to happen.

Score: 0

By skimore

posted Oct 13, 2008 - 2:21 PM

does this have something to do with the huge viacom lawsuit against google??

Score: 0

By Wynner3

edited Oct 13, 2008 - 1:47 PM

Youtube? Really? Why the hell would I want to watch tv shows or movies on there and not Hulu? If CBS doesn't want their stuff on Hulu with 480p content, f*ck them. Youtube quality still sucks.

Score: 0

By scottjose

edited Oct 13, 2008 - 1:55 PM

I love Hulu but my problem with it is their lame system to prevent copying by only streaming a few seconds of the video at a time. Despite the fact that I have a fairly fast cable connection through my university, I get choppy video which is unwatchable... At least Youtube lets you cache the content, preventing the choppiness problem...

Score: 0

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