Online TV Sites Battle for Viewers

On TV, content is king. But on the Web, community may reign supreme. Throughout television history, the way to lure most viewers was to air the best shows. It doesn’t necessarily work that way on the Web, where many shows can be seen on multiple sites.

Take the recent announcement by CBS (CBS) that it would begin airing shows like Showtime’s “Dexter” and Sony Pictures Television’s (SNE) “Bewitched” on TV.com, CBS’s online site for full-length video. But none of the more than 1,000 new programs are exclusive to TV.com. And the episodes of “Bewitched,” the classic sitcom featuring the nose-wrinkling witch Samantha, are already on rival Hulu, the joint site of NBC Universal and News Corp. (NWS). “Every major studio right now is following a nonexclusive strategy” online, says Arash Amel, senior analyst with London-based media researcher Screen Digest. “The question for these sites is beginning to be, ‘how do you differentiate yourself beyond the content you have?’”

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