• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, November 29, 2007

Even radio stations are trying to cash in on the boom in online video. CBS Radio's portfolio of Web sites has enlisted AOL's video search engine Truveo to provide its visitors will a broader range of content.

Video for radio? To David Goodman, president of marketing for CBS Radio, it makes perfect sense.

"We carry plenty of video on our Web sites," Goodman says. "News video has been an especially hot growth area for us."

As part of the partnership, more than 35 CBS Radio stations have now integrated Truveo's video search engine online, with more scheduled to launch next month.

Visitors to the sites can search and browse through tens of millions of videos from thousands of sources across the Web.

Along with user-generated video from video sharing sites like YouTube and Dailymotion, Truveo features major media brands, including CBS, ABC, BBC, CNBC, CNN, Disney, FOX, and, NBC, among others.

Goodman adds that while he expected the new offering to generate inventory for advertisers, the real purpose of the deal is to increase engagement with viewers.

"Anything we can give to viewers to increase the value of the sites to them helps us in the long run," he says. "There's no reason why one of our sites can be a resource for a huge range of information and services."

Video search is a highly saturated market with various sites--Truveo, Google, blinkx, and Pixsy among them--jockeying for users' devotion. Still, no service has yet to establish itself as the Web's de facto video search leader to the degree that Google has laid claim to text search.

To separate itself from the pack, Truveo promotes its ability to effectively retrieve much of the professionally produced content now being stricken from video sites like YouTube--by going directly to the content producers' Web sites.

And there is research to indicate that professionally produced content is in higher demand, despite all the hype surrounding consumer-generate media. Indeed, the majority of adult U.S. Web surfers--62%--say they prefer professionally produced video over amateur fare, according to a recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.