YouTube to offer full-length classic TV shows

Partnering with CBS Corp., YouTube announced on its blog Friday that it would post full-length episodes of old fan favorites such as "MacGyver" and the original "Beverly Hills 90210," along with newer hits including "Dexter" and "Californication," in a bid to bring more advertisers to its highly trafficked site. YouTube is also in talks to add shows from other networks and feature-length films.

Advertisers haven't always been comfortable linking their products to YouTube content, much of which is user-generated and only a few minutes long, notes Jupiter Research analyst James McQuivey.

For YouTube, that meant running relatively few ads in unobtrusive places for fairly low prices. The site is expected to generate about $200 million in revenue this year, notes Times staffer Jessica Guynn. Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006.

But, McQuivey notes, advertisers aren't squeamish about classic TV. "Advertisers understand those shows and are happy to sponsor them," McQuivey says in an e-mail.

The full-length episodes will include streaming ads sold by CBS, which will share the revenue with Google.

Most of YouTube's rivals that also offer full episodes of programs have similarly placed ads. TV episodes aren't hard to find online, at sites such as Hulu.com, jointly owned by NBC Universal and News Corp., and theWB.com, which resurrects the now-defunct teen-friendly network, along with networks' own websites, including CBS.

But YouTube is arriving a bit late to the party.

"YouTube comes at it at a large disadvantage," McQuivey says. "But it has one thing that no one else has: millions of viewers a day."

This is YouTube's first attempt to enter the TV on-demand game since its Wild West days back in 2006, when users freely posted their recordings of televised -- and copyrighted -- content. YouTube fell under harsh lawyerly scrutiny while simultaneously raking in viewers, many of whom came for the bootlegged "Daily Show" but stayed for "Evolution of Dance." It's still fighting off a billion-dollar lawsuit from Viacom Inc., which sued for copyright infringement.