• The Wall Street Journal, Monday, May 14, 2007 11 AM

After trying and failing with an online video strategy requiring users to come to one destination to view content, CBS Corp. is shifting gears. As it was offline, CBS believes that distribution is the name of the game on the Web. Of course, so do broadcast competitors NBC, ABC and Fox.

While NBC and Fox, through the NBC-U News Corp-Microsoft-Yahoo-etc. video partnership, may have already achieved the largest distribution (before releasing anything), CBS this week is set to extend its menu of video content to as many as 10 different Web sites, from Time Warner's AOL to the online video startups Joost and Veoh.

Its new Manifest Destiny has a name, too: "the CBS Interactive Audience Network." To the chagrin of Web portals like Yahoo and MSN, CBS will sell the advertising that appears on its network, keeping 90% of the revenue. It's a different strategy from the News Corp. video portal, because it presupposes that one of the video startups will rise to the top. CBS is essentially hedging against choosing the wrong one.

CBS will announce "a flurry" of other online deals this week, including an agreement with the social network Facebook that allows users to post CBS video clips to their profiles. Another expected deal with Slide Inc. would allow social-network users to customize photos and videos with CBS content. Separately, the blog Jossip yesterday said CBS is in the final stages of purchasing WallStrip, a CNBC-like video blog whose host, Lindsay Campbell, is touted as the next Amanda Congdon.

Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal »