News Corp. on Tuesday said it will be offering full episodes of Fox TV shows on MySpace and local Fox TV websites.

The ad-supported Fox On Demand service will offer episodes of “Prison Break,” “Justice” and “Bones” on MySpace and via websites in 24 U.S. markets where News Corp. owns TV stations, reports Reuters. At launch, the service will be sponsored by Toyota Motor, Burger King and Lionsgate Entertainment Corp.

“Leveraging this unique opportunity with our sister company Fox enables us to experiment and innovate and deliver some of the most compelling video experiences online to consumers,” Ross Levinsohn, Fox Interactive Media president, said in a statement.

TV networks are finding that the best way to build viewership for their offline shows is to join their online communities.

Networks are beginning to turn online for input in the direction of their shows from their viewers, AdAge reports. ABC’s popular series Grey’s Anatomy set up a companion blog, titled Grey Matter. On it, one of the show’s writers noted that viewer feedback held “an enormous amount of weight in the writers’ room.”

Recently, new mashup network CW created a page on MySpace, and so far more than 27,000 members have made the network their “friend.” In 2004, Bravo’s “Project Runway” created a blog and podcast for one of the show’s advisors, Tim Gunn. Now there are more than 10 blogs and podcasts on its site.

These community-building initiatives are credited with some success because direct network involvement gives viewers a sense of input in the direction of the shows. Bloggers and fans see the writers for shows reaching out to them as a sign of respect, and bloggers are notorious for rallying around companies that reach out to them in their own space. Such efforts may even vest an interest among those bloggers to see the series succeed.

Comcast and the Walt Disney Company have signed a multibillion-dollar deal that will allow the cable operator to distribute Disney programming on its video-on-demand service.

Comcast has also agreed to buy Disney’s 39.5 percent stake in the E Entertainment channel for $1.23 billion, writes the Associated Press (via MediaBuyerPlanner). CBS and NBC have made similar deals for VOD distribution, but this is ABC’s first deal to provide cable customers with on-demand content. Disney has had success, however, selling content via iTunes.

MediaPost points out that the deal takes care of three long-term problems for Disney: digital TV distribution, cable carriage of ABC stations and networks, and resolution of its partnership in E Entertainment.

The deal continues a content distribution agreement for the 10 ABC-owned broadcast stations and many of Disney’s TV networks, including Disney Channel, ABC Family, Toon Disney, ESPN and ESPN2, the companies said. Comcast has agreed to start a Spanish-language sports network called ESPN Deportes.

The shows Disney will allow Comcast to distribute on-demand include episodes of Desperate Housewives and Lost, as well as two unspecified new fall programs. The shows will be free within 12 hours of broadcast. Comcast will also add World News with Charles Gibson, Nightline and This Week to its on-demand roster.

Anatomy of Success

In the cross-platform battle to drive visitors to TV network websites, where users can view full-episode streams of programming, ABC is leading the rest.

Overall, the ABC and NBC sites are drawing 9.5 million unique visitors a month (October to December), much more than CBS and Fox sites, which are averaging 5.2 million and 2.8 million uniques, respectively, according to Neilsen/NetRatings (via MediaPost).

For streams of prime-time episodes, ABC again leads. In October, ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and Desperate Housewives drew 3.1 million unique users.

All four networks include some sort of advertising in their streams, ranging from a small “presented by (insert sponsor name here)” logo on the top of the screen on ABC.com to mid-roll ads on CBS.com to pre-roll on NBC.com and the Fox site.

Advertisers include Allstate on ABC.com, AT&T on the CBS site, Cisco on NBC.com and Chase on Fox.

NBC is finding that its hit TV shows, streamed online, are attracting not only viewers who missed broadcast episodes but also new viewers, MediaWeek reports.

NBC’s Rewind video player allows viewers to watch the network’s popular daytime and primetime shows online. NBC claims that 26 percent of viewers watched episodes that they had already seen offline, and 34 percent of users watched shows they had not seen before.

But the service seems to be paying dividends for advertisers as well. NBC says viewers are using the service as an online DVR - except that users can’t fast-forward through the ads. Reportedly, 81 percent of users were able to recall specific pre-roll ads that were viewed at least twice.

Rewind has delivered over 42 million full-episode streams since debuting, to 6.9 million unique viewers. In December, the average streamer spent 35 minutes watching video onNBC.com. “Contrary to conventional wisdom, consumers are ready to watch long-form entertainment on the web and we plan on making more available,” said Jeff Gaspin, president of NBC Universal Cable Entertainment, Digital Content and Cross Network Strategy.