Who knew News Corp. and Google would be entering counseling this early in their relationship? It was only a few weeks ago that top execs were crowing about the quick courtship, showing pictures from the honeymoon and bragging about the $900 million (minimum) dowry. But the Google-MySpace union left room to stray, with a gaping hole where video was concerned.
Now Fox Interactive and News Corp., which have during the past year signaled interest in YouTube but went ahead with MySpace video while YouTube insisted it wasn’t available, is miffed. But it’s also in a bit of a trick box. As I mentioned yesterday, Google’s willingness to pay $900 million helped News Corp. quantify its $580 million purchase of MySpace and subsequent investment in the social network. As has been suggested to me (and others from what I read), MySpace could cut off access to YouTube but that could backfire quickly with a rebellion of MySpace users that would make the Facebook feed fracas look good. The two companies come at MySpace’s value to YouTube differently: MySpace has been described to me as the largest referrer to YouTube; YouTube, as the Journal notes, says less than 20 percent of video views come from MySpace.
What next? The Journal reports that Google CEO Eric Schmidt, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch and some of their top execs will gather in LA this week—that means Google is showing respect by heading to News Corp. turf—to explore ways to renew their vows, possibly with a video deal. Some discussions on expanding the deal predate GOOG-YouTube.
MySpace-YouTube video numbers: MySpace outstripped YouTube in U.S. streaming videos served in July, according to ComScore Media Metrix. MySpace: 37.4 million unique streamers and nearly 1.5 billion streams initiated. YouTube: 30.5 million and 649 million streams initiated by U.S. visitors. Both were runners up to Yahoo, with nearly 38 million uniques and 812 million steams initiated. Not sure why MySpace’s streams number is so close to the combined totals of the other two.
Related: FIM-Google: More Details; Already Talking About Other Possibilities
—FIM-Google: Levinsohn: “When Sergey Comes Down, They’re Pretty Serious”