ABC to test free web-streaming with 'Housewives', 'Lost'

Starting next month, U.S. network ABC is going to try streaming some of its hit shows, such as Desperate Housewives and Lost, for free on the internet.

Walt Disney Co., ABC's parent company, announced the trial project Monday.

"It's really an opportunity for us to learn about a different model," Anne Sweeney, president of Disney-ABC Television Group, told an annual cable industry convention in Atlanta, according to Reuters.

"It's more importantly recognizing that none of us can live in a world of just one business model," she said.

The company will also stream Commander in Chief and Alias during May and June, and Disney willoffer episodes of some of its popular Disney Channel programming, such as That's So Raven, as part of the free trial.

The streams will be available the day after a program's initial television broadcast, but the episodes will not be downloadable to a computer.

Although viewers will be able to pause and scroll through "chapters" in each episode, they won't be able to skip over the commercials embedded throughout.

The move follows the company's landmark deal with Apple Computers last October to sell some of its most popular shows on Apple's U.S. iTunes online store.

The aim is for the broadcasterto testways to increase TV viewership and retain advertisers, Sweeney said Monday.

Recently, U.S. networks have been aggressively trying out new methods of transmitting their traditional TV programming via new outlets, including internet-only channels, online venues and video-on-demand services.

With the rise of broadband internet access, these methods are seen as one way of reaching new or younger viewers, many of whom are spending more time online chatting, e-mailing, surfing the net, exchanging media files and playing video games.

The U.S. National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has even established a new Emmy Award category to recognize TV programming created specifically for new viewing formats, for example onvideo-enabled cellphones, digital players like the video iPod and on the internet.

At the upcoming Emmy Awards, six broadband-specific shows have been nominated for the new category recognizing "original entertainment programming created specifically for nontraditional viewing platforms."

The nominees range from a mobile phone spinoff of Fox's hit counter-terrorism thriller 24 to AOL's Live 8 website, which streamed live feeds and other on-demand footage from many of the Live 8 concerts last July.

The winner of the new category will be announced along with the other winners of the Daytime Emmys in New York on April 22.