When Viacom and CBS split into two separate media entities, the convention wisdom was that Viacom would be the "growth" vehicle. But since then, the stock has continued to drift lower, CBS was aggressive about building a web presence, and Viacom has been criticized about not getting it content on the web faster. This critique has extra significance because Viacom cable network viewers tend to be younger and that is the demographic that that allocates the most time to online.

Today, we see that Viacom has a response. Google will now distribute video to some online publishers that participate in Google's AdSense network. The video clips will carry ads with Viacom content with Google, Viacom, and the site owners splitting the revenue. The deal is expected to roll out on a test basis later this month.

To me the deal is a sign that Google really wants to fight to be a video portal. Perhaps even more significantly, it is getting better at dealing with the owners of content, which has not always been the case. After the test with Viacom, Google hopes to allow any video producers to use its system to distribute programming with advertising. It also plans to add ad-supported programs to its own video site.

The New York Times points out that "Google and Viacom are trying to create a legitimate business model for one of the hottest trends on the Internet: bloggers and others with Web pages are putting video clips on their sites. Many are using sites like YouTube, which store and play back video with little advance review of whether the content is copyrighted. And indeed, many of these clips are recorded from television programs without the owner's permission."