ESPN has released its first episode of its scripted web series Mayne Street. ESPN’s John Skipper said last month that the network has 15 episodes done his “expectation is it can generate millions of viewers.”

Above: Mayne Street Episode 1: “Fixes”

As ReelPop notes it shows shades of ABC’s Sports Night.

In a week that saw more companies shedding jobs and packing it in for the recession, there was also a lot of positive including news of digital syndication deals designed to push more content to more screens.

I may be a contrarian, but I’m looking forward to the “Internet Winter.” The constriction of available capital should force companies to focus on revenue and refining business models Here’s a roundup of what we saw this week:

• ESPN’s John Skipper announced at EconSports that ESPN.com will launch a redesigned site in January and expects to generate 2 Billion video views in 2009.

• MLBAM CEO Bob Bowman had some interesting things to say about online video subscription models and MLB’s digital licensing philosophy and opening up to signing more digital distribution deals. “You’re seeing a loosening up. In the ESPN deal, we gave them a lot more content than we did before that, I think you’ll see a lot more leagues do more of that.”

• American Business Media’s Gordon Hughes said that its members’ revenue from print dropped from 48% in 2000 to 38% in 2008 and said that streaming media “has become a new robust revenue stream.” CNBC meanwhile has nearly 200,000 users across its enterprise and consumer subscription online video services.

• From DPAC II: Tremor Media’s Randy Kilgore says “Pre-roll has gone full cycle. It got its bad rap, and now its come back and is very popular.” But “Standard metrics is still key” says Sean Finnegan of Starcom Mediavest.

• Revision3 and 60Frames made layoffs joining Seesmic, ManiaTV, and a growing list of online video startups that are tightening their belts. Notably missing from the list is Next New Networks which got $15 million in funding just in time.

• Online video technology firm Clearleap has secured 3.3 million in venture debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank. The Clearleap platform is designed to deliver online video content to the TV, most likely in the form of yet another set top box.

• Netflix will syndicate content to TiVo boxes, following the announcement last week that it would deliver content to Samsung Blu-Ray players, and earlier announcements about Roku and xBox LIVE.

• Strike.TV, formed during the WGA strike late last year launched this week at Digital Hollywood. The digital network debuted 10 original series with professional production values and Hollywood talent. Content is available in HD delivered by BitGravity. Check out Global Warming featuring Aasaf Mandvi (The Daily Show) and Kristin Wiig of SNL and Knocked up fame below.

Whew. Busy week. Don’t forget to turn back the clock on Sunday.

Backed by Michael Eisner’s Tornante Company, Veoh has secured content from ESPN and ABC for their video portal, according to a Reuters report.

Veoh will show full episodes of some of ABC’s lineup as well as clips from ESPN’s shows and sports highlights.

eMarketer points to an Informa Telecoms & Media report projecting $7.9 billion will be spent on “online video and TV services” in 2013, 63% from advertising. The report values the total 2008 market at $4.7 billion.

The Convergence Consulting Group reports: In 2007 “9% of TV viewers had also watched full- episode Broadcast/Cable Network TV online, up from 6% in 2006; we forecast 14% for 2008, 19% for 2009, and 23% for 2010. ABC & NBC were the Broadcast, and Viacom the Cable Network, 2007 online full-episode viewing leaders.” (via YuMe)

ESPN has signed a content syndication deal with AOL. This is ESPN’s first online content syndication deal, and a bit of a break from ABC’s traditional portal strategy. Can ABC / Disney content be far behind? And if they syndicate to AOL, why not Hulu?

Google wants to host your apps. And once they do, they’ll sell ads on them. And once that happens try getting a better deal somewhere else. Scale is the key to monopoly online. Can we start talking about an AT&T style breakup again yet?

.FOX Networks has acquired a majority stake in European ad network utarget. The unit which will be rebranded utarget.Fox reaches 21 million uniques a month across more than 600 UK web properties.