CBS joins ABC and AOL in placing content online in a freely available way; their effort, called Innertube, will be an entire broadband entertainment channel.
They insist on calling it innertube in their press materials, so as long as I remember to paste that in each time I refer to it, we’ll be just fine. CBS announced their online content distribution channel, called innertube, premiered today.
Hitting the link to innertube brings up Windows Media Player on the left and an index of available videos on the right. Users can also choose to use Real Media Player instead of WMP. Clicking on the link to a 4:11 video called “Beyond Survivor” featuring Challenges Producer John Kirhoffer launches a short pre-roll advertisement (at press time it was for Pringles) before beginning the show.
The video, which includes such cheery delights as people eating bowls of a disgusting fish concoction and vomiting it back up, displayed very clear. Pixellation appeared when the camera panned quickly across a scene or when people made rapid moves, but even that distortion was very minimal and short-lasting.
Site visitors can browse through several categories of programs in a Flash-based menu like innertube Originals (home of “Beyond Survivor” and “Survivor Live” among other shows), Primetime, Daytime, Movies & Specials, Comedy, Drama, Reality/Alternative, and Talk. There are two categories for less recent programs, calls Past innertube Originals and Past Broadcast Shows.
From the menu it’s a simple process to navigate the menu, pick a show, and watch it.
CBS has a lot more content planned for the broadband channel as well:
In the coming months, innertube will also become a distribution outlet for streaming encore episodes from CBS’s prime time line-up and for webcasts of content from CBS Corporation’s vast library of 2,600 titles and 100,000 hours of television programming. It will also become an alternative programming option for series broadcast on the Network that didn’t reach a mass audience, but have a loyal, passionate following that lends itself to Internet appeal.
Innertube, which can be accessed from the home page of CBS.com, will initially stream three shows daily. One new program will be posted on the channel each day, Monday through Friday, making at least five new offerings on the site throughout the week. Programming will be archived and can be accessed at any time with innertube’s browse function.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
