November 20, 2006

TECHDIRT: CBS Is The Latest To Recognize That Downloading TV Shows Leads To More TV Watching from the slowly,-but-surely dept We were among those who were quite surprised when Viacom and its subsidiary Comedy Central forced a bunch of clips from its popular TV shows off of YouTube, noting that those clips had done plenty to attract new fans to the shows, while also keeping existing fans interested in coming back for more. While they eventually came to some sort of agreement (that probably involved some money changing hands), it appears that more TV execs are finally realizing that people watching their shows online leads to more viewers of the shows on TV. Simon Favreau-Lessard writes in to let us know that a new study from CBS found that downloading leads to more TV watching, and they plan to make use of that knowledge in how they use and promote their content online. Again, while the networks obviously have the right to demand this content get taken down, it's good to see them starting to realize that exercising that right often is a bad long-term business decision. 10:54:19 AM