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TV Networks Discussing YouTube Rival
An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is carrying a story indicating that NBC, CBS, Fox, and Viacom are considering banding together to work on a competitive video-hosting site. The goal would be to provide an alternative to Google's YouTube, and presumably direct some revenue in their direction." From the article: "While a deal is still far off, the four media companies envision a jointly owned site that would be the primary Web source for videos from their television networks, the paper said in an online report on Wsj.com, citing people close to the situation. The companies aim to cash in on the fast-growing market of Web video advertising and have also discussed building a Web video player that could play clips, the Journal said. "
And they are going to use DRM. Wow...such a compelling service...NOT!
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-RMS
... the whole concept of social media ran into a brick wall. A bank wall, at that.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
I don't think the property of *exclusive content* applies to the internet. Digital information can be too easily copied for any exclusive content to stay exclusive for long.
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If all those companies can come together to produce a site as easy, unrestricted, and as free of 'red tape' as YouTube i'll eat my hat.
I'll say it here now.. nothing that the networks will ever develop (regardless of how many of them get involved) will ever compete with YouTube - just won't. Simple as.
The only way they'll ever beat YouTube is with litigation.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
What revenue?
Just copycats with ZERO originality.
Should have fought the republican/red state censorship. Nope, you guys rolled over like lapdogs.
Censorship = boring television. It stifles originality. I enjoy plot and dialogue but I also enjoy nudity and real-life speech(expletives).
Anyways TV is now mainly aimed at demographics of women and teen girls.
TV=newspapers. Could be dying out.
I'll give even odds that they use Google AdSense for their revenue stream. ;-)
Uh, so just about the entire US broadcast industry is banding together to distribute content through a joint venture. I think the word you want is "anti-competitive", not "competitive".
No Need For YouTube When OurTube Is Your Tube!
And they say they"...have also discussed building a Web video player that could play clips"
Wow...what a revolutionary idea...
Next they'll start putting ads on sites. Or charge for premium content. Dare I say they bring the blink tag back?
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Whats with all the "killers" these days? I mean, first it was iPod killers, and now we have one of many Youtube killers. DRM+MOVIES+"exclusive content"=Crap All these companies finally agreeing on something, and it has to be a ripoff of another company. The again, ripping people off is what they do best.
When mad at one, try running a mile in their shoes. That way, not only do you have their shoes, but you are a mile away.
First, Cuban says Google is stupid for buying YouTube, now all the megamediagiants want to band together to try to beat Google at its own game? Google has some work cut out for it... maybe?
If you consider that **AA wants to pull the rug out from under Google et al, now MS is trying their hand at the online video thing... then along comes johnny mediagiant to try too.
Perhaps there is more to this free internet videos thing after all?
How can the MPAA continue to want to control content and then want to play in the same space as Google?
The only thing I'm certain of is that this could be very interesting...
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Wow.. compelling. As it stands now, I can 'TiVO' or download all the shows I want to watch, sans commercials and bullshit.. or I can subscribe to the networks' version of youtube for $11.99 a month, that has less content and comes complete with commercials and DRM. Yeah.. that's going to work out really well for them.
http://www.france24.com/ just launched. This will be a new trend.
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You can get your boobs and cursing from movies. Go watch seasons 1 - 4 of The West Wing and tell me it isn't great TV.
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Wow, this venture sounds both as exciting and successful as MusicNet. (Remember when the major music labels tried to do this?)
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I think the word we want here is "collusion". Or possibly "cartel".
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Are they really competing with YouTube? Rather, why are they competing with Apple? Apple is already selling (some of) their shows, and they're apparently pulling in mad bank for it.
building a Web video player that could play clips
The TV networks aren't stupid. They've got a really long-term vision for this. After they create this "video player," which I hear is going to be called something like "FastTemporalMovement," or "HurryUpNow," they're going to start making some of these clips available on a vast, distributed network they are calling, "The ConnectedLattice." Originally they were going to call it "DenseAdaptiveRegisteredPlaybackAssociationNET," but apparently that was too close to some other experimental project someone else is working on. After their new distributed network gets activated, they're going to pass their video through a series of interconnected tubes and into this distributed network, which will then allow individual users to connect via the "FastTemporalMovement" video player and watch programming on.. get this, here's where it really gets exciting... THEIR HOME COMPUTERS!!!"
Now tell me the TV networks aren't technology and business innovators! Once people start getting a taste of this "video on your computer" thing, customers will start lining up to pay the networks for quality programming like American Idol and Deal or No Deal. The only potential snag in the networks' plan is that some viewers may, and I think this is only a slim possibility, may start producing their own video content and attempting to place it on the vast distributed network the clever TV folks thought up. What a funny thought that is: consumers actually producing content. Heh heh. Too funny. It'll never happen. The networks are WAY ahead of the game, folks.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
What do they need a joint site for? If all they want to do is allow limited downloads of their own content, each network can do that right now.
Also, with a Democratic Congress, anti-trust questions will be asked. Competitors aren't supposed to have joint marketing arrangements. "Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court." (15 USC 2). Antitrust enforcement has been out to lunch since Bush came in, and Congress hasn't questioned this. That's going to change.
have also discussed building a Web video player that could play clips
There *is* a player -- it's called Flash. Why do they need another player? DRM, perhaps? No thank you.
Software Wars
If they want to beat youtube, all they have to do is not have that recent youtube change whereby the left-hand menu is right on top of the first column of videos in Firefox. Makes it completely unusuable; apparently all those PHDs don't actually count for anything in the real world when a bug like that gets out.
Or maybe Google don't think it's worth their while testing on browsers other than IE.
News Corp is the parent of both Fox and MySpace. Since MySpace already uses video technology akin to YouTube, it's a good bet that this new site might use a derivative of the MySpace video features. If they do go with the MySpace stuff, they'll have a lot of debugging to do ;)
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
Network tv has always been centralized, top to bottom, where a few selected execs, producers, editors, etc. make a decison that what IS content, when and how THEY will supply IT to THEM, the passive, consumer audience.
YouTube is the "network tv of the producers inside the consumers": grassroot, bottom to up, cowboy, wild west gold digger, narcistic, decentralized.
Network tv and YouTube are so far apart in basic philosophy (that governs how they work), as they possibly can.
Network tv still thinks that YouTube is just a popular web site. Network tv wants to create an other, similarly popular website.
But YouTube is not just a popular website. YouTube is everything that network tv is not - and never will be. But network tv execs will never understand this, because they are network tv execs, from head to toe.
Network tv and YouTube is just two different media species. Lightyears apart, with no hope for good sex together any time soon.
Random.Nick
This is probably just posturing to get a better deal.
The TV networks probably aren't getting as sweet a deal as they'd like from Google/YouTube, so they're threatening to create a rival and use them exclusively. They just want Google to cave to their terms.
Chances are Google won't.
Chances are the TV networks won't be able to agree on exactly what they want for some time, will find out how hideously expensive creating a rival would be, and then realise they have to solve the problem as to how to get people to watch their rival as well. This will cost a hefty bucket of money, and there's no way they'll be able to agree how to split the cost fairly.
Then it'll be back to the negotiating table. Google will give them a token step towards their terms to protect their shattered egos, and the TV execs may or may not take it. Or, possibly, Google will give one TV network a sweet deal and refuse to budge on the others, and the others will effectively be forced to accept a crappy deal or face irrelevance.
Some guy creates some new hot gee-whiz technology, mainly to have fun and see what it can do, not for others but what they think would be (which is usually a lot more than most big businesses would plan for the 'consumer')
Eventually some big company notices the interest in it and thinks, "We should jump in and get our cut out of this." and starts to dream talk up a 'better version' which is "improved by thier knowledge and experience".
Then Marketing, Legal and PR guys gets wind of the concept and put in thier 12 cents: "lets take X out because we'd be giving that away, we could charge extra for it", "lock down Z else soneone *might* sue us", and "looks geeky, let's put more half-naked chicks on it to appeal to the market".
And what we get in return is an on-line rehash of thier tried and true (for them) business as usual with the talk that they are "innovating" and "being on the cutting edge".
Now most of the previously excited followers sigh and either put up with it as there is not much they can do since the Big Business has now muddied the waters and are wringing out every penny they can, or go on to look for something away from the hype all over again.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
American Idol tops the ratings charts. That is ultimate proof of human stupidity. Most Slashdotters complaining about the general decline of TV also complain about general human stupidity, which, being something proven, Occams itself in. (I complain about the latter but not the former--I watch the shows that I like and only mention those I don't as an example when I need it, and I know that Sturgeon's Law rules over mankind)
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
TV networks just need to realise people are sick of their shit.
They just dont get the hint
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
How come nobody mentions piping YouTube content out to a television channel, or to a series of television channels? This is so blatantly obvious to me.
Of course, I'm one of those nuts that wants to pipe Internet into TV Land. I've been trying to get the proper resources for a LPTV station, but it is taking me a little while to singlehandedly do this. I already record my own shows, commercials, and other TV-type content.
If the idea is to push video to users, wouldn't Cable/Satellite TV be ideal for that? I'm sure nobody wants more reality TV shows, but if you think about it, Reality Internet TV is the next obvious step.
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I suggest you read Slashdot
The 'big media' conglomerates have always been geriatric/glacial in their movements into new technology.
I'm thinking this is worthy of note on just how fast they are um... talking about this. They probably see it as targeting a key demographic (the teenager - young adult crowd), which it does and would.
*deep breath* The reason, I'm guessing, for the seemingly slow movement would be the decision makers are older, fiscal conservatives who are fearful of new technology and systems/processes that transcend general media broadcast methods.
I had to chuckle over "a Web video player that could play clips". TFA doesn't go into enough detail, but it leads one to assume that it is a web client similar to what we have been using for YouTube. (May the Master Control Program derez it softly into oblivion.)
However, in the context, the hypothetical player could be either a physical web-appliance (doubtful) or a program that runs on a PC with web connectivity (similar to Media Player Classic).
I would imagine that they want complete control over the project and will want a proprietary codec/format that they can load with DRM. Given their feelings (and their lawyer's) on the subject, this is fairly obvious. If this were not the case, I'd imagine they would use Apple Quicktime.
It is also obvious that Walt Disney wouldn't want to join in on this just yet. They are berserk about their intellectual property rights.
Given their track record, I'm slightly impressed. I think they will mess it up by being over-protective of their rights by having some snake-oil salesman tell them what they want to hear, but I'm still (mildly) impressed.
"lets all get on the inovation train.. everybody.. hop aboard our next destination is the tubess. the tubes of the internet!!!!"
If I wanted to watch commercials every five minutes during _Lost_ I'd just watch it on TV.
...they use the Flash player. Hell, both Youtube and Google Video are Linux user friendly as they support the Flash player which ANY desktop OS from today can use. If they decide to go the route that someone like say... VONGO did, and use Windows Media Player as the base engine for their "web player", they will not get off the ground at all. I remember hitting Vongo from both my Linux box and my Mac and getting told that there is no support for my platform. It looks like they'll NEVER support Linux unless Wine can eventually support IE7+WMP11, or I just run Windows in a VM. It looks like they could support Mac OS X but ONLY if Microsoft shares the DRM code with Apple. So again possibly only a VM solution will work there. Pretty pathetic in my eyes. Are you listening you cluestick impaired suits at the big networks??? Likely as not.
iCraveTV would have made big bux for the networks had the neo-Luddites not stomped on it. Let someone else do the technology right, then the networks could have taken their cut of the ad revenue stream (or have added value to their existing national advertising).