CBS Introduces Classic Shows To Web Audience

With News Corp. and NBC offering up such oldies as The A-Team, Kojak, Partridge Family, and S.W.A.T. (among many others) to their online audience at Hulu and other NBC sites, it only seems logical that other television networks would follow suit in offering former fan favorite shows for viewing via the internet.

Today, CBS has become the latest network to join the online old-school bandwagon, as the company's CBS Interactive division has announced that some of their classic televisions shows from the past will now be available online.

Visitors of the CBS homepage will find a new TV classics section in the 'Shows' menu which contains five shows, consisting of Melrose Place, Hawaii Five-O, MacGyver, Star Trek and The Twilight Zone. Though for the time being only selected seasons are available for viewing, CBS is expected to add more episodes of the newly added shows, as well as other classic television titles. As with all of the other current shows available online expect embedded advertising.

These shows will, of course, be distributed through the CBS Audience Network, which apparently has over 300 partners sites and video services such as Joost, Veoh, and AOL (which is also a Hulu partner), among others… hundreds of others.

Ever since the writer's strike began last November, online video services have seen surges in traffic, as TV fans looked to find programming elsewhere. This is surely CBS's way to keep fresh (though old) content available to keep up the high traffic numbers. Whether it will be enough or not remains to be seen, now that the strike is over and new episodes of halted shows should begin airing within 4 to 6 weeks.