Katie Couric on
the Evening News

Hoping to garner the loyalty of audiences more accustomed to consuming news online than on TV, CBS News is partnering with Ustream to stream newscasts and live reports over the 'net, including (often-unfiltered) conferences and speeches. Ustream will also air the "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric."

The online video site doesn't just syndicate streams and shows; it enables users to chat live alongside the coverage and embed video players onto their own pages.

CBSNews.com already hosts a number of live streams, including those Ustream will syndicate, but CBS believes its audiences will expand if third-party websites also spread its content.

"What we've realized is that, as opposed to just keeping all your content on your own Web site in a proprietary manner, we are better off pushing our own news content to as many sources as we can," stated President Sean McManus of CBS News (via The New York Times).

The network will make the most of its dissemination deal by selling ads on Ustream's pages.

CBS has been streaming its "Evening News" segment since 2006. On TV, the newscast remains third in viewership behind NBC and ABC, which also stream a number of popular offerings on their websites. In mid-May, the "Evening News" averaged about 5.4 million viewers daily.

Nielsen reports that CBS News' internet properties served 10.8 million people in April, up 9% from the previous year — no competition to sites owned by Yahoo, MSNBC and CNN, whose monthly viewerships average anywhere between 35 million and 40 million.

By and large, reaction to web-only newscasts by networks has been unenthusiastic. But according to CBS, some of Couric's online outreach efforts bore encouraging fruit, including her YouTube channel and Twitter feeds.