CBS Goes Live Online with Ustream

Online video is becoming a large business even for the reluctant big TV networks. Since it was launched in 2007 it has proven quite successful and has risen to the top of online video sites. But only three out of the four major networks in US, namely FOX, NBC and ABC, have partnered to create and provide content for Hulu. CBS has been strangely left out. However, it seems to have found its own ways of getting its content online and making some revenue in the process, and today it has announced a new partnership with Ustream, a popular live video streaming service.

The deal will bring a lot of CBS content to Ustream trough a multitude of channels but for now it seems centered on CBS News. The partnership will allow Ustream to broadcast the “CBS Evening News” as well as breaking news coverage and news conferences and speeches. Its news division hasn't been doing so great lately and the hope is that this will allow it to connect to a younger audience as well.

“What we’ve realized is that, as opposed to just keeping all your content on your own Web site in a proprietary manner, we are better off pushing our own news content to as many sources as we can,” Sean McManus, the president of CBS News, said.

CBS has had a troubled past with online content distribution. It didn't sign as a launch partner with Hulu because it believed it could make more money elsewhere. In 2008 CBS bought TV.com, then a site centered on TV content with some powerful social networking components and a big user base, along with its parent company CNET for $1.8 billion. However, CBS redesigned and relaunched it earlier this year, so it would also be a video provider very much like Hulu. This prompted Hulu to later pull its content from TV.com citing contractual problems even though the latter had been a launch partner with it.