Well, this is a pleasant Monday morning surprise! ABC is continuing it’s more-progressive-than-the-rest-of-Hollywood thinking by announcing it’s plans to offer episodes of it’s TV shows online for free. It’s only a two month trial period to start, but Wall Street seems to be happy with this direction, with Disney stocks up over 1.5% as I type this.

Walt Disney Co.’s (DIS) ABC television network will offer some of its most popular shows, such as “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost,” for free on the Internet in a two-month trial, the company said on Monday.

The move was the latest effort by leading U.S. media companies to experiment with the delivery of programs through new technologies and still maintain revenue as viewership for prime-time television schedules slowly erodes.

ABC already sells digital downloads of its highest-rated TV shows for the popular iPod music and video player, while other networks have been testing online and video-on-demand formats for airing shows soon after they first appear on broadcast TV.

“It’s really an opportunity for us to learn about a different model,” Anne Sweeney, president of the Disney-ABC television group, said at an annual cable industry convention in Atlanta on Monday. “It’s more importantly recognizing that none of us can live in a world of just one business model.”

Top ABC shows such as “Commander in Chief” and “Alias,” along with “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives,” will be available on the Web at ABC.com in May and June, starting the day after they are first broadcast, the network said.

Viewers will be able to pause and move between “chapters” in an episode, but not skip ads that are technically embedded.

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