So reports NYT, following up on reports that started cropping up last month about media companies, including News Corp, NBCU and others pondering launching a joint rival to the online video behemoth YouTube. The story says the joint site, as yet unnamed, will feature some of their best-known TV programming and other clips..it could be announced as soon as this week.
The push is from News Corp and NBCU side....Its chief architects were Peter Chernin, the president of News Corp. and David Zaslav, who oversaw NBC Universal’s cable networks and was last month named CEO of Discovery Communications. The story says News Corp.‘s desire to protect its MySpace asset from losing its audience to YouTube was a big driver behind the group.
Also, CBS might not be part of the deal, because of its own close relationship with YouTube and ongoing negotiations with Google.
But the story warns that executives from the companies have been in intense negotiations over the ownership and management structure of the new entity and the talks could continue until the end of the year or fall apart entirely.
Related:
—That Cross-Company-YouTube-Rival Thing Again
—GoogTube Dangling Nine-Figure Sums To Media Companies; Cross-Company Rival To YouTube?