Joost Gets a $45 Million Boost

Just as P2P TV service Joost is opening up publicly beyond its beta, it just raised $45 million from CBS, Viacom, Index Ventures (a Skype investor), and Sequoia Ventures (a YouTube and Google investor). Joost was founded by the same the men behind Skyp, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis.

Big media (CBS and Viacom) is behind this deal because Joost is specifically set up to generate advertising revenues for it, rather than piggyback on its TV shows and movies license-free. In Big Media's battle against YouTube, Joost and other emerging Web TV platforms (like Veoh and Babelgum) might be it's best chance.