• The Wall Street Journal, Friday, September 28, 2007 11:11 AM

To cater to what it believes is the short attention span of online audiences, CBC Corp. today is launching CBS EyeLab, a digital-production studio that will create and distribute short clips cut together from the network's most popular shows. Preliminary network research shows that less than one-third of CBS' Web audience is interested in watching full-length episodes of shows online.

CBS says the EyeLab-produced clips will both entertain viewers and serve a marketing purpose by turning promotion into content. The network also plans to sell ads that will be embedded in the clips. The content it offers will look more like videos on Google Inc.'s YouTube -- bite-size clips, streamed free, many with the feel of user-generated content -- than episodes of network prime-time shows.

CBS says the inspiration for EyeLab came from a video posted on YouTube last year called "Endless Caruso One Liners." The clip, just over seven minutes long, is a montage of scenes from "CSI: Miami," showing star David Caruso uttering his characteristically pat catchphrases from the scene of the crime and has been viewed more than 1 million times, according to YouTube.

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