The Wall Street Journal and Reuters are reporting that CBS is ready to announce deals to distribute several television programs through internet video portals.The announcement could come as soon as today, and will include distribution deals for television programs including Evening News with Katie Couric, CSI, and sports programs. While this is good news for MSN and AOL, the company with the most to gain might be Joost, which still suffers from a general lack of decent programming.
CBS reportedly hopes to pocket 90 percent of the advertising revenue that comes from online video distribution, which seems a little high, but they're the ones with the content to offer. One could make the case that Joost would be little more than a program to showcase YouTube videos if it couldn't convince major content owners like CBS to share programming.
In the long run, if these internet TV platforms take off, we'll see more high quality original content being produced for them. But it took a long time for decent original programs to pop up on cable television.
Six Mad Men characters who are in limbo after the finale
Fact or Fiction: Big Bang, Brothers & Sisters and CSI
The TV Squad Podcast: Linda Purl talks about The Office, we talk spoilers, and more
