YouTube’s Going Small in Hunt For Content Deals; Viacom’s Chest-Thumps On Numbers
A good trend story in NYT about YouTube’s quest for small content deals, as it waits and litigates for big media content licensing deals.
Just this week it has announced deals with NBA and Wind-Up Records. It says it has firmed up more than 1,000 partnerships with content owners ranging from the Sundance Channel to small independent video producers…YouTube officials say they are adding more than 200 media partners a quarter. Of course, does it amount to anything? A bit too early to say.
Even the deals with NBA and Sundance Channel are experimental: NBA deal does not include the league’s most-prized content, the recaps of the games, which will still be on NBA.com. Similarly, YouTube’s partnership with the Sundance Channel lasts through this year. Also, most of YouTube’s deals are not exclusive.
Meanwhile, Viacom said on Thursday that traffic to its MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon websites rose sharply over the past month, validating its decision to force YouTube to remove all Viacom video clips.
Related:
—NBA Signs Another Video Deal With Google; This Time, YouTube and AdSense Are The Venues
—Earnings: As Viacom’s Digital Content Revenues Grow, Lines Between New Media And Old Blur
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Comments (2)
Mar 2, 2007 12:03 PM
Brightcove is doing the same kind of deals. The easy part for YouTube/Brightcove is the distribution and monetization technology. The hard part is promoting all of these partners. As they add more and more channels how do they direct meaningful traffic to all of them? The Sundance channel got 2 million streams for it’s library which is BIG. At a $25 CPM (which is beyond what YouTube is currently monetizing at) we’re talking about $50k/month, split 50/50 between YouTube and it’s partner it’s $25k for the Sundance Channel. The challenge for YouTube is how do they exponentially increase exposure for every partners content so they become a meaningful source of revenue for those partners? Right now all these deals are non-exclusive for precisely that reason.
Mar 2, 2007 1:59 PM
Exactly. And what is going to happen to the smaller independent producers? They are going to get squeezed and pushed into the “bargin bin” of Youtube. They will not be promoted as heavily as the larger, more mainstream content.
This is why http://www.hungryflix.com is focused soley on independent producers and filmmakers. We hope to become a top destination for great indie content.