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Just An Online Minute... Corporate Views Of YouTube Differ -- In A Billion Ways

Viacom might have sued YouTube for $1 billion this week, but other TV networks, including former corporate sibling CBS, see a use for the video sharing site.

CBS this week tapped YouTube for an NCAA channel that will offer highlights of the March Madness games. Pontiac will sponsor the channel and YouTube and CBS will split the ad revenue.

The move comes as CBS said it was struggling to accommodate the online viewers who want to access the games -- which garner a good chunk of ad revenue for the TV company.

This year, even though CBS doubled the bandwidth for the games, it still anticipated that it might have to ration access to them. The network said last week that the site would only be able to handle 300,000 viewers at the same time.

At the same time, distributing the games to as many people as possible is a priority for the company. CBS Corp. president and CEO Leslie Moonves said in September that the company anticipates $9 million in ad revenue from the games this year, up from $4.5 million last year. By contrast, in 2005, when CBS charged a subscription fee, it took in $250,000.

YouTube was at least one obvious way for CBS to increase viewership of the ad-supported streams without causing traffic jams at its own site.

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