'Buffy' and 'Gilmore Girls' to get video site play

Shows from the WB Network will be featured on Veoh Networks, Dailymotion and other Web sites

(Credit: TheWB.com)

As part of a comeback attempt by the WB Network, Warner Bros. Television Group has cut deals to distribute TV shows to TiVo, Veoh Networks, and other Web video sites.

The WB is the network made famous by such teen fare as Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Gilmore Girls. The network shut down in 2006, when Warner Bros. partnered with CBS to launch the CW Television Network.

Warner Bros. said in April that it would relaunch the network as an online-only play. The company said in a statement on Thursday that in September, Dailymotion, Joost, Sling Media, TiVo, and Veoh will launch channels that will feature the network's ad-supported programming from TheWB.com or KidsWB.com.

Anybody who has ever turned a buck on TV appears to be dusting off old reels and getting them digitized in a hurry. CBS and Hulu, the video portal created by NBC Universal and News Corp., have shown that people enjoy watching vintage TV shows on the Web.

Included in the new material from The WB is at least one series created especially for the Web, called Sorority Forever.

[Tsee]

Shutting down the WB and trying to combine it with UPN must rank as one of the dumbest decisions ever in TV network history.