New comedy will preview for a week before its premiere

TiVo, which normally lets you watch a TV show after it first airs, is teaming up with CBS to let you watch a show before it first airs.

The DVR maker will offer its subscribers a free preview of CBS' new comedy "The Class" starting next week -- a full week before the show makes its Sept. 18 over-the-air debut. The partnership is the first of its kind for both parties.

"CBS' partnership with TiVo is a creative new way to use DVR technology to help drive television network viewing," says George Schweitzer, head of marketing for CBS. "Our goal is to introduce our fresh new comedy 'The Class' ... to a broad, diversified, receptive audience that has the ability to start trends and generate buzz, which is exactly what TiVo offers."

The deal will also let TiVo users, who number about 4.4 million, watch previews of CBS' other new series, "Jericho," "Smith" and "Shark," and record all four premieres with one click of the remote.

For TiVo, the deal also helps differentiate its service from the proliferation of DVRs that are now built into cable and satellite boxes. Depending on whose research you trust, 8 million to 12 million of the 110 million-plus TV households in the United States have a DVR, meaning TiVo has a substantial but not Microsoft-like share of the market.

"The Class" follows eight former third-grade classmates who cross paths again when one of them (Jason Ritter, "Joan of Arcadia") invites the others to his engagement party. David Crane ("Friends") and Jeffrey Klarik ("Mad About You") created the series.