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NBC, News Corp Join to Create YouTube Clone

Brett writes "It's official: NBC Universal and News Corp have announced their plans to create a video sharing site of their own. The joint venture will features both TV and movie shows in full length, including episodes of '24,' 'My Name is Earl,' and movies like 'Borat.' The plan is to also syndicate content on other portals like MSN, MySpace, and Yahoo! It's unclear how YouTube's previous deal with NBC relates to this, but it's clear that the major players are now shunning YouTube."

11 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. great... by kennedy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    but what will it cost to view the content? i mean it seems to me that one of the largest draws to youtube is that it's free and good for a quick time waster/video fix. remove the free aspect, and youtube would have been just another failed web start up. anyway i highly doubt news corp and/or nbc would be open to simply giving away viewings to movies. NBC is already dabbling with free tv shows online (the only example that comes to mind is Heroes - you can catch that on nbc.com for free [they advertise it with each episode of heroes on the tube).

  2. When they say 'ad-supported' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    ..do they mean web ads, or ads in the show (like traditional commercials)? In my mind, there is a big difference, especially considering that if they were commercials the service would probably try to keep people from skipping them.

  3. I have a question by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is any video sharing site to be labelled a youtube clone?

    Just like newbies to the intarweb would think that Yahoo is a "google clone"?

    Is this a "Apple invented the computer, mp3 player, and are currently inventing the phone right now and we cant wait" type of a deal?

    I just remember seeing video on the internet pre-youtube.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  4. NBC = bad track record by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hope it is better than NBC's Video Rewind site which lets you view previous episodes of their shows. It is so glitchy that it is probably easier for an end-user to install BitTorrent, find a site, and download it. They use Flash video, so you get postage-stamp size video. They divide it into 6 sections and run short commercials in-between -- shorter than network TV commercials, which would be nice... except that half the time it gets stuck and doesn't move on to the next section. Then if you try to seek it displays another commercial. And it plays the video before it is buffered so you have to pause/play it manually and guesstimate when it is safe. Then of course, if you mis-click, or the playback glitches, you seek and get an ad and have to start over. It took me 2 hours to watch a 1 hour episodeof Lost.

    To top it off, it crashed when I exit the browser (Safari) which is sad since I can spent hours watching videos on YouTube without it crashing.

    Why can't they just stream an .MP4 file? It's a standard, cross-platform format that every OS has a player for. Sheesh.

    1. Re:NBC = bad track record by YojimboJango · · Score: 2, Interesting

      About two months ago I would've agreed with you about the NBC Video Rewind. However they've really improved it over the last few weeks. Video quality is better than youTube and I haven't had it skip once on the 14.99 a month dsl package that I watch from.

      I will give you points for accuracy about what it used to be. I tried watching it after hours on the work T1 line about 2 months ago and the video halted, audio got out of synch with the video and a lot of times the video wouldn't come back after the commercial breaks. Overall unwatchable. However now a days it has improved considerably. I don't know if it's still buggy for the safari browser (I don't own a mac), but it works wonderfully on FF2.0.

      I actually make a point to watch missed shows from the producer now. Sure it has some commercial breaks, but they've done the right thing. They made a BETTER alternative. The video and audio quality is much nicer than youTube permits. How many times have we all heard some slashdotter complain that they'd support X company if they offered a nicer service than one they could get online for free? NBC has turned into that X company and has now bested the pirate uploads to youTube. We should be applauding and supporting NBC for this (even though they were bastards that put a hold on the next episode of heroes). They are beating the pirates at their own game and setting their selves up to make a profit in doing so.

      Of course if you want copies of your favorite show in HD and on a disc the day after the show airs torrenting is still your only option. But that's another matter entirely.

  5. Re:And so ends YouTube by nanoflower · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Of course it's crap. It was a decision made by accountants. They saw the number of viewers that YouTube was getting, and they may even have some preliminary numbers for the TV shows that have ended up on YouTube and they wanted that money for themselves. They think if they set up a site with TV shows they will pull in the viewers and get all of the money for themselves. It might be by using ads or perhaps they want to use the site to sell DVDs and new episodes to viewers that check out the site (instead of or in addition to something like Itunes.)

  6. Re:If you build it they will come by vought · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This will fail miserably.

    -Can't store content for future use.
    -Windows/Explorer ONLY
    -Advertising
    -Crappy format

    And most importantly:

    PEOPLE DON'T SIT AT THE COMPUTER TO WATCH HALF-HOUR SHOWS.

    Apple has this figured out. Why do these people feel the need to reinvent the wheel?*

    *Actually, it's to make themselves feel smart. When this fails - and it will - they can blame filesharing, technology, or some other bugaboo.

  7. A predictable step by BlueCoder · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Youtube was ahead of it's time. It was inevitable that the media conglomerates would try to role their own. They will find out exactly how expensive and difficult it is to do this type of site and predictably the small players and producers will eventually go with Youtube and then the major ones will crumble one by one as they strike amicable deals due to customer demand for a single site.

  8. Re:who by AresTheImpaler · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I do.. sometimes.. :( leave me alone..
    a tv tunner card + coding session (or web browsing) = happy me
    I just resize the video and put it on the bottom right corner.

  9. Well by unity100 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    people are yelling like this, because they are still not believing it is actually happening.

    neither am i.

    ill only believe it when i see it.

  10. They are playing with fire... by CasperIV · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They think that they can squeeze YouTube out, but since the take down notices, I have not had my YouTube searching impacted at all. I don't spend my day searching for stupid TV shows (that's why I don't watch NBC). There are only a few channels I actually watch, and none of them have shows I watch all the time. TV is going the way of the music industry. They are losing focus on what people want and are following equations to make shows that will make profit. The problem is that people are starting to get smarter and are figuring it out. Why do they think people like fast forwarding the commercials and TIVO is such a hit? People are sick of the current system. Making commercials harder to fast forward and pulling videos from the web only hurts themselves in the long run... to bad they can't think that far ahead.