CBS' newest Web programming is old-school, really old-school

An array of classic TV shows from CBS are now available online, the network's CBS Interactive division announced Thursday.

Full-length episodes of Star Trek, Melrose Place, Hawaii Five-O, MacGyver, and The Twilight Zone have been added to the lineup of the company's CBS Audience Network, as well as its central streaming-video site. All of it is free and ad-supported; only select seasons of each show are currently available, but CBS has hinted that more episodes, as well as additional TV shows, will go up in the near future.

Five classic CBS shows, now playing at a browser near you.

(Credit: CBS)

The CBS Audience Network consists of more than 300 partners, including video-sharing start-ups such as Joost and Veoh, social networks such as Bebo, portals such as AOL and Microsoft, as well as a number of other companies and Web sites. Among them is CNET Networks, publisher of News.com.

But at least for now, you won't be seeing these TV shows, or any other CBS content, on the nascent online-video hub Hulu. Despite rumors that additional players, such as Viacom and Time Warner, are close to jumping on board, the site remains a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp.

NBC Universal, meanwhile, announced on Tuesday that it will similarly stream online a number of its classic TV shows, including The A-Team, Kojak, and Buck Rogers. But instead of openly syndicating them, as CBS plans to do, NBC's streaming operations will be centered on genre sites such as SleuthChannel.com, ChillerTV, and SciFi.com, as well as on NBC's own video site and Hulu.