CBS Streaming Two Sitcoms via Yahoo

CBS and Yahoo are streaming "Two and a Half Men" and "How I Met Your Mother" commercial-free for a week via Yahoo TV.

Broadcast network CBS and Yahoo have teamed up for CBS’s “Comedy Bowl,” streaming commercial-free episodes of CBS’s Monday situation comedies How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men via Yahoo TV.

Two previously broadcast episodes of each program will be available for viewing via the Internet for free through January 2, 2006. Like other Yahoo TV offerings, the episodes are streamed in Windows Media format.

The announcement marks the first time Yahoo has streamed CBS programming in its entirety; previously, the network had made a commercial-free episode of its one-hour drama Threshold available for streaming via CBS’s own site.

The partnership with Yahoo is one more tit-for-tat with online rival Google, which broke into streaming network programming via the Internet for free by streaming the pilot for UPN’s Everybody Hates Chris in September 2005.