Yeah, we have heard this talk before, in various incarnations…media companies, especially news media companies, have mulled launching a rival to Google many times before, but those were just flights of fancy. Now Jon Fine reports some of which we already know: that Google has dangled big sums (he says nine figures, of around $100 million…that’s up from the eight figures sums we have heard before) to media companies, as licensing fees for their content…or the other way to look at it: don’t-sue-us-bribe.
Fine spells out the conundrum in front of media companies: “Such a sum far exceeds what any single broadcast network can extract from the online world—and drops straight to the bottom line. But taking the dough fortifies an already threatening rival.”
Meanwhile, parallel to this as they consider the dangled amounts, the media companies are now mulling launching a unified cross-company video rival to YouTube, the story says. The source Fine spoke to says: “The theory is that if you were to aggregate enough exclusive content in one place, you could actually change viewing patterns”. I doubt it would ever happen…they may put their weight behind something such as Brightcove or Revver, but no one wants another NCN.
Related:
—Google In Frantic Talks To Halt YouTube’s Legal Threat; Offers Tens of Millions In Upfront Money
—Google-YouTube: It’s Official; $187.5 Million For Indemnification
—UMG, SONY BMG, WMG Have Small Stakes In YouTube: Report