YouTube serves up classic TV

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Online couch potatoes will now have a lot more viewing options when watching the popular video Web site YouTube.

As part of a distribution deal announced Monday with Digital Music Group, Inc. (DMGI), YouTube will offer episodes of classic television series such as "I Spy," "Gumby" and "My Favorite Martian" as well as a portion of DMGI's music catalog.

Shares of DMGI (up $1.16 to $4.91, Charts) soared on the news, climbing over 27 percent in Nasdaq trade Monday.

"We're very excited to introduce our video and controlled-publishing music catalogs to the largest audience for video content available on the Internet," Mitchell Koulouris, chief executive officer of DMGI said in a prepared statement."Not only is YouTube helping to promote independently owned content but will also provide a new revenue source for DMGI through online advertising."

The Sacramento, Calif.-based DMGI owns or controls the digital distribution rights to over 4,000 hours of video and controls the publishing rights for roughly 40,000 music recordings.

YouTube, which was purchased by Google Inc. (down $6.31 to $455.58, Charts) last year, has entered into a number of partnership deals recently with such media outfits as Warner Music Group (down $0.66 to $19.49, Charts), General Electric's (up $0.33 to $35.86, Charts) NBC Universal and CBS Corp. (up $0.01 to $31.69, Charts).

CBS former parent company Viacom (down $0.32 to $40.06, Charts), however, demanded last week that the Web site remove 100,000 clips from its MTV and BET channels after the two failed to reach a distribution agreement.

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