Google is seeking new ways of attracting people to its popular video-sharing Web site YouTube and also make a profit from its huge traffic. On its blog page, the company announced that full-length episodes of some well known TV shows are now available online.

"We are starting to test full-length programming on YouTube, beginning with some fan favorites requested by you," the statement said.

The episodes can be viewed in YouTube’s traditional window and also in its new ‘theatre view.’ The advertising strategy brings 15-seconds ads once users hit the play button. There will also be some messages during the episodes and at the end. Still, the company’s officials explained that there will be several different advertising plans tested, in order to find the best possible marketing angle. "As we test this new format, we also want to ensure that our partners have more options when it comes to advertising on their full-length TV shows," YouTube said. "You may see in-stream video ads embedded in some of these episodes; this advertising format will only appear on premium content where you are most comfortable seeing such ads."

The reason why this advertising plan was not adopted until now is because the company’s officials feared that users would not visit the Web site as often if every 60-second video would have a 15-second commercial at the beginning – and they were probably right.

For now, the new service will only be available in the United States and users from other countries trying to access the episodes will receive this note: "This video is not available in your country."

Through a partnership with CBS, YouTube offers episodes from popular TV series such as Dexter, Beverly Hills 90210, Star Trek, Californication and MacGyver.

Jordan Hoffner, the director of content partnerships for YouTube, explained that the interest in short clips slowly fades and users tend to search for longer videos. "This is about giving the community what they want," he said, referring to the new offer and also added "Plus, we're not blind to the growth of long form on other sites."

This new segment faces serious competition from other services, which are focused on these full-length clips. One of the most popular is Hulu, the joint venture between the News Corporation and NBC Universal. Hulu recently reported that it reached more than 100 million video streams a month. Still, the undisputed market leader is YouTube with its five billion video views, which represents 44 percent of all the online video consumption in the United States.

Considering these numbers, it was clear that Google had to find a way to cash in on the success. In order to make sure that the number of visited full-length videos will be considerable, the offer will have to be extremely diverse, targeting users of all ages and covering as many genres as possible. Other partnerships could also be considered, as it would lead to a bigger video archive, but for now YouTube will roll out with CBS’s material.