YouTube Gets Its First Cross-Platform TV Ad Deal From C4/Lucozade
ITV (LSE: ITV) might be reluctant to monetise its flagship TV content through YouTube but Channel 4 has no such concerns – it’s has signed a cross-platform sponsorship deal that mean its Lucozade Energy ads around the forthcoming Big Brother series, starting Thursday, will also go as pre-roll ads and banners on YouTube’s official Big Brother YouTube channel.
It’s exactly the sort of deal that eluded ITV during its recent Britain’s Got Talent series: the company failed to cash in on Susan Boyle’s epic I Dreamed a Dream rendition despite it becoming the fastest-growing viral video of all time. ITV managed to extend its key BGT sponsor Dominos to its ITV.com videos, but not to syndicated video sites
YouTube has, though, got BBCWW, Channel 4, National Geographic, ITN and Discovery (NSDQ: DISAB) to trial pre-roll ads. YouTube UK says: “It’s the first time a TV sponsor is also sponsoring the same show’s content on YouTube.”
Is this the real reason why C4 have removed the Live Feed? so that they can try and sell the content in little packets on youTube.
The whole deal of Big Brother is that they are being watched 24/7 – i have no issues if all that data can be put onto youTube and i would hope it becomes very popular, but to remove the 24/7 live streaming is to remove the main backbone of the Big Brother format.
I consider myself a serious BB fan, and have never missed a series, C4 say itâs been removed because it was not getting the ratings, but i donât see that is the main issue at stake, who is going to be around to create âthe buzzâ if itâs not the loyal fans that watch as itâs happening, get passionate about the people there, and spread that passion to all the more casual supporters.