TV.com to become video site in CBS Interactive re-org

CBS will reportedly be re-launching TV.com, a property it obtained through its $1.8 billion acquisition of CNET Networks, as a video portal where content comes from numerous providers, including Hulu.

The market is getting increasingly full of streaming TV sites. There are sites which encode and post their own intellectual property like WB.com, and abc.com, and there are sites which redistribute content from a number of networks like Hulu, Joost, and even YouTube. Then, there are sites like AT&T's VideoCrawler, AOL's Veoh, Sling.com, and Comcast's Fancast which catalog and link to content from those distributors, while providing their own reasons for users to sign on.

TV.com will become one of the latter. It has already begun providing video content from CBS and Hulu, while continuing to cross the "screen gap" by providing information about new pilot programs, awards shows, and the entertainment industry at large. This includes the ability to check regular, cable, and satellite TV listings by timezone and network operator. It even throws in some welcome surprises: under the "People" tab, which one can almost guarantee is a link to social networking features, is actually a list of the most popular actors according to TV.com traffic.

Talk of TV.com's relaunch is timed with the recent news that CBS Interactive will be cutting jobs in a restructuring of its subsidiaries, including MP3.com, News.com, Gamespot.com, and of course TV.com.

Despite the surfeit of competing video content distribution services, the minor increase in advertising revenue that can be drawn from pre-, mid-, and post-roll ads will help carry the site through this depressed economic period. TV.com will reportedly make a full transformation in January.