CBS to Take Online Video Seriously

CBS is re-launching reports:

While it’s being talked about by content partners and others as the CBS answer to Hulu.com, that’s not quite the way I think CBS sees it. Hulu.com, launched in beta in late 2007 and for real in March 2008, is a video destination with a solid video search engine and some community elements that have yet to really take off. Launched in 2005, TV.com has been a “digital water cooler” about anything and everything having to do with TV, drawing more than 16 million unique monthly visitors and boasting info about nearly 19,000 shows.  As planned, the new version would blend the two by making TV.com into a real video destination, not a place where you happen to watch video, while continuing to build on its community strengths and its depth of content about TV. CBS doesn’t want TV.com to be Hulu—it wants to move beyond Hulu.

CBS execs aren’t ready to discuss—or even confirm—the project, which is still in product development (likely to be a constant state) and is being rolled out in phases. But CEO Leslie Moonves singled out TV.com for investors last week as “extremely exciting,” explaining “we think TV.com will become the destination, or certainly one of the leading destinations, for anybody who wants to watch TV shows or have a community around TV shows, see clips, play games, etc.”

To me, it sounds kind of like an IMDB for television, only with more video content (although IMDB's working on that too):

CBS is really showing that it doesn't want to be left behind in terms of online video competition. Apart from this, they recently quite well, so it is no surprise to see them streaming some regular season games this year. Their schedule for that is as follows:

own sites.