PBS Plugs Cattle Shows

Plenty of broadcasters are excited about the Internet, but PBS is having a cow.

To promote some upcoming bovine-centric TV programming, PBS Thursday launched mootube.com , which sounds a little like a dish on a Chinese menu but is instead a venue for watching video from Web cams attached to various heads of cattle.

A quick surf-over found mostly streamed video of the shadows of longhorned cow heads on pasture grass, plus a profile of Watson 101, which is not a college course on famous sidekicks (think Sherlock Homes and Alexander Graham Bell), but the longhorn with the longest horns (100 inches tip to tip).

The programming being cleverly promoted is Texas Ranch House, the latest "house" series, this time about a group sent to live the lives of an 1867 ranch fmaily in Texas. The series launches May 1-4.

But for those who can't wait that long for their longhorn fix, Show Cattle debuts April 26 at 8 p.m., which is a look at the Fryeburg Fair, a sort of WildWestminster Doggie (as in "git along little") Show billed as "one of the most prestigious cattle shows on the East Coast.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.