TV Classics Go Digital

Written by: Steven Zeitchik for Variety

‘Martian,’ ‘Spy’ head for Google Video

Classic television skeins including “My Favorite Martian” and “I Spy” are coming to Google Video and other digital platforms.

Digital Music Group, until now a company that focused on music libraries, is expanding into TV. Company is acquiring digital distribution rights to older TV shows and sealing deals to make them available in new-media venues.

Among the company’s first offerings are TV shows that include “Daniel Boone” and “The Invisible Man.” It will also make available kid content such as “The Gumby Show” and “Gumby Adventures.”

All its programs are either already live or set to go live on Google Video for a fee; other platforms will follow, including iTunes, with which the company has already pacted.

“Customers will have an appetite for the older catalog titles in video just as they do in music,” topper Mitchell Koulouris said. “If you go into a Wal-Mart or Best Buy, you just can’t find this stuff.”