If you can`t make it on television, you might want to try "Yahoo!"

In two brief runs on television, the live-concert show "Pepsi Smash" drew only a modest audience, but Yahoo! expects the program on line will be a boon to its digital music lineup.

Yahoo! Thursday unveiled a redesigned, online version of "Smash," which, as a program on the WB network, attracted an average of only 1.3 million viewers in eight episodes last summer, the New York Times reported.

Yahoo! and Pepsi plan to revive "Smash" as a collection of video segments, with plans to deliver digital streams of live performances from Coldplay, Kanye West and Gwen Stefani, along with new clips designed for short-attention-span online viewing.

Yahoo! will supervise production and promote the "Smash" series throughout its Web site, the newspaper said. Pepsi will pay for advertising on television, radio and other offline media.
Analysts told the Times Web online video prospects to draw big audiences are rising as more people obtain high-speed Internet access. About 34.3 million U.S. homes, 29.9 percent of households, had broadband connections last year, according to eMarketer. That number is expected to rise to more than 69 million homes, or 56.3 percent of households, by 2008.

Copyright 2005 by United Press International