WASHINGTON — More than 11 million viewers watched free ABC television shows on their computers during May, the first half of the network's two-month experiment with streaming shows on the Internet.

The numbers, which come from ABC parent Walt Disney Co., have encouraged the network's hopes that viewers are willing to watch advertising online in exchange for free programming. The shows — "Lost," "Desperate Housewives," "Commander in Chief" and "Alias" — promise limited commercial interruptions, and those are restricted to one sponsor per show. Advertisers include AT&T Inc., Cingular Wireless LLC, Ford Motor Co. and Universal Pictures.

The trial has been successful enough that the service will be back for the fall TV season.

To put the online numbers in perspective, "Lost" received the highest television ratings of the four ABC shows offered on the Internet, averaging about 15 million viewers a week during the recently completed season.

ABC — along with ESPN, also owned by Disney — is trying a number of ways to reach viewers with its programming.

Last October, Disney began selling commercial-free episodes of some of its shows (Disney, ABC and ESPN content) at Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes download store for $1.99 each. So far, iTunes has sold 6 million downloads of Disney content. About half the downloads are episodes of "Lost," Disney Chief Financial Officer Thomas Staggs said recently.

ABCNews.com averages 10 million unique monthly viewers, Disney said, and ABC News Now — an Internet-based news and talk channel also accessible via cable and cell phones — gets about 10 million plays a month.