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TV Networks Discussing YouTube Rival

Posted by Zonk on from the hard-to-get-that-right dept.

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. "

8 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Exclusive content? by SilentOneNCW · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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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    1. Re:Exclusive content? by Threni · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I think it'll be the first step in an effort to remove their stuff from the 'net. Once they're up and running, they'll have a stronger claim that YouTube is a rival, hosting their IP, for free, and doing little to stop it.

      Presumably they'll also be selling their stuff over the net?

  2. Re:Hah.. by superpulpsicle · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's not possible for NBC, CBS, Fox, and Viacom to work together. The closest any one of them came to working with another major corporation is M$ and NBC forming MSNBC. Everything else has been a merger, buyout or ridiculously complex business partnerships. YouTube is the king until they figure out talent > management ego.

  3. Re:"and presumably direct some revenue" by Webs+101 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You get 100 million hits a day ( http://www.onlinereporter.com/article.php?article_ id=7234 ) and the ad revenue starts to add up.

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  4. Wow, this is pretty interesting... by zappepcs · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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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    1. Re:Wow, this is pretty interesting... by rolfwind · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If ebay has shown anything, firstmover status (specifically the domain name attached to it) in the internet is very important - no matter how crappy the service becomes. It becomes very hard to come into the internet later on and take on a sucessful service that is moderately competent at what they do. (I'm still amazed that Google managed to win search away from yahoo because of this).

      Google didn't buy a videosharing service, they bought a domain name for that 1.5B. And they are banking that it will be the future of Television on the internet.

      I also learned that whenever the oldschool wants in on the internet, they become secondtier (barnes and noble), and if it's a collaboration (modern napster.com), forget about it - the bosses just don't understand what makes a sucessful site or internet service and they'll hamper whatever their employees are trying to put together, much like all the other divisions of Sony hampered the PS3 division until it became compromised to the market.

      Youtube is under no threat whatsoever unless they drop the ball themselves.

  5. Competing with Apple? by jfengel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  6. Posturing by OverflowingBitBucket · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.