DailyTech - Viacom Offers Daily Show Archive Online

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Michael Hoffman (Blog) - October 21, 2007 9:10 AM

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2 comment(s) - last by Screwballl.. on Oct 22 at 10:55 AM

Eight years of episodes are available to viewers for free

In case you didn't hear about the news already, eight years worth of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart episodes are available for free on the show's official web site. Users now have access to more than 13,000 episodes of fully embeddable show clips, allowing users to post them on blogs and web site forums.

“There are many many years of shows that haven’t been seen since the day they aired,” said Erik Flannigan, MTV Networks Entertainment Group vice president of digital technology. “It’s not a show that would go on DVD and it’s not a show that would go into syndication, so it’s essentially been lost to history.”

Even though full episodes are not available, the searchable system allows users to find clips by keyword tag or timeline dating back to 1996. Users do have to put up with banner advertisements, video commercials and advertising messages, but it should be worth it for Stewart fans.

This is the first time I can remember any show deciding to offer all of its episodes online for no cost to the user.

The move by Viacom surprised journalists, especially since the company continues to be angry with YouTube offering clips from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report for free. A similar content distribution system is being developed for The Colbert Report.

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Good move

By FS on 10/21/2007 6:10:11 PM , Rating: 3

seems like they think " only comedy makes us happier". Hope they expand to other genres too. Nonetheless, it makes a good business sense to start with something, comedy (daily show to be exact in this case), which has a huge fan following.

Contract?

By Screwballl on 10/22/2007 10:55:54 AM , Rating: 2

All they need is to setup a contract with Youtube or google videos or whoever to have some sort of disclaimer that this is property of viacom. Maybe allow them their own channel within youtube/google that Viacom has control over what is posted there.

"Spreading the rumors, it's very easy because the people who write about Apple want that story, and you can claim its credible because you spoke to someone at Apple." -- Investment guru Jim Cramer