Time Warner to Offer Free Classic TV Shows

AOL Time Warner announced the company will start offering free, yes free but ad supported, vintage TV shows:

The on-demand deal, which involves about 300 shows including "Welcome Back Kotter," "Kung Fu" and "Growing Pains," will feature six channels ranging from comedy and drama to animation and science fiction. In2TV will also include interactive features such as games, quizzes, polls and trivia contests.

Shows will be inserted with 15- and 30-second commercials totaling to 1 or 2 minutes for each 30 minute episode. Time Warner is following a similar announcements from NBC and CBS who will offer for download popular TV shows 99 cents a pop and Disney who will make available 5 shows, some animated films and music videos for iPod video.
Indeed, Time Warner is doing a great step towards on-demand services area with this classic movie venture. They do realize that any how these shows have lived their time and it is just right to make a bit more money buy giving them free with commercials. I think Time Warner is just testing the waters to find the right approach in entering on-demand services market in on not just vintage shows.