"Swingtown" is a CBS television show, scheduled for midseason, about partner-swapping couples.
It's also what CBS executives lightheartedly call their new Internet strategy. The idea is to let their online material be promiscuous: Instead of limiting their shows and other online video to CBS.com, the network is letting them couple with any website that people might visit.
"CBS is all about open, nonexclusive, multiple partnerships," said Quincy Smith, president of CBS Interactive.
Like other broadcast TV networks, CBS is trying to find its way in the digital world.
Last spring, a day after presenting their fall television lineup to advertisers at Carnegie Hall, a group of CBS managers headed for a place far from the opulence and stuffy tradition of the New York concert hall: Silicon Valley.
In search of Web know-how, they met with 16 next-generation Internet companies in Palo Alto to discuss what traditional media could learn from emerging media about engaging people online.
Some of the network's findings are reflected on its revamped home page.
Until recently, CBS.com had consisted of what one CBS executive described as "regurgitated television" -- full-length streams of shows and scheduling information.
The new, less cluttered website, launched in tandem with the fall season, focuses on attracting communities of fans who want to gab about such CBS shows as "How I Met Your Mother" or "Kid Nation."
It devotes less space to TV Guide-like programming information and instead provides a forum where viewers can express their views -- good and bad -- about shows.
"The key lesson from Silicon Valley is respect for the audience," said Jonathan Barzilay, senior vice president and general manager of entertainment at CBS Interactive.
But the approach also includes that "Swingtown" element: CBS offers software to let fans of shows such as "Jericho" get production updates, photos, exclusive video and insider commentary, then post them on blogs and social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.
The redesign is another step in the digital metamorphosis of CBS that's being led by Smith, a former investment banker who took charge of CBS Interactive in November. He took on the task of overhauling CBS' digital strategy despite the network's reputation as catering to older viewers.
