Here's a headline you wouldn't have expected to see about six months ago, "CBS says YouTube is helping ratings." Lost Remote ran that headline atop a post today on the success of CBS's deal with YouTube which legally allows limited clips of CBS material to be posted on YouTube. According to Lost Remote, the 300 videos uploaded by the network have been viewed 29.2 million times in the month since the deal was cut. In that time, the ratings for Late Show with David Letterman and The Late Late Show, which make up the bulk of the uploaded videos, have risen 5 and 7 percent respectively. Obviously, there could be other factors which caused the jump, but it's safe to say YouTube is responsible for most of it.

While the headline is shocking when you look at the networks' view of sites like YouTube several months ago, the results really aren't. Taking the best of your content and sending it out to millions of people, some of whom wouldn't have seen it any other way, is undoubtedly going to lead to better ratings, which will lead to more ad revenue. I expect other networks to follow CBS, with YouTube and Google being the big winners. Google's purchase of YouTube brought legitimacy to the service, legitimacy is what the networks needed to see, and no industry follows the leader like the entertainment industry. ABC proved this with free streaming of its most popular shows last season, the other networks followed. — Brian Ward

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