Full Length TV Now on YouTube

Saturday October 11, 2008

YouTube struggled for a long time to find media agreements for premium content. Viacom ended up suing them. Other companies formed their own solution. Finally, YouTube announced they were testing full length TV shows with some old CBS programs.

It looks like the test is limited to the US, and it's limited to nostalgia reruns. The shows will have commercial breaks in the middle of them, but TV and Internet viewers are already used to this. When you search through CBS offerings, look for the special film strip icon to indicate a full length episode. Maybe Google ought to work on an easier way to sort full episodes from snippets.

For many people, this may not be a big deal at all. There are far more offerings on Hulu. We can already go to the website of our favorite network and watch most shows. However, if you try to view your shows on a Wii, an AppleTV, or a mobile device, you might find it challenging. Google has already optimized YouTube for playback on a lot of these devices, so it finally makes sense to try to use them that way. I'm going to go turn on my Wii and watch a little classic Star Trek.