Has Comedy Central Decided People Have Seen Enough Of Its Shows On YouTube?
from the no-more! dept
Over the past few years, Comedy Central has been very accommodating to people putting their shows up on the web, knowing that it helped get them more publicity. YouTube has been a great source of clips from its most popular shows, from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to The Colbert Report to South Park. In the last year, as the success of YouTube has grown, it's seemed pretty clear that these clips also helped gain those shows increasing popularity. It gave people who missed last night's show a way to catch up on the funnier moments, and remind them why they didn't want to miss the next night's show. In particular, the producing team behind The Daily Show and The Colbert Report seemed to really appreciate how this worked. Last year, producer Ben Karlin said: "If people want to take the show in various forms, I'd say go. But when you're a part of something successful and meaningful, the rule book says don't try to analyze it too much or dissect it.... The one thing that you have control over is the content of the show. But how people are reacting to it, how it's being shared, how it's being discussed, all that other stuff, is absolutely beyond your ability to control."Of course, that was before Google came into the picture. The media industry has been pretty wary of Google for a while, now, and it looks like Comedy Central's parent, Viacom, has had enough. Jeff writes in to let us know that YouTube has taken down many of the clips of those three shows at the request of an unknown third party -- who it seems reasonable to assume is Viacom (that story claims all clips from those shows are down, but poking around you can still find a few as of this posting). Let's be totally clear about this: this is absolutely Viacom's right. They have every right to do this, as Tim Wu noted yesterday. They could keep the clips up for as long as they'd like and then cut them off. However, that doesn't mean it's a smart move. It's much more likely done out of jealousy over Google than any strategic sense. The fact that these clips were on YouTube kept interest in these shows incredibly high and attracted a ton of new interest -- which the folks from those shows seemed to understand. After all, South Park became an original success because its clips were passed around online before it was even a TV show. Having the clips online got more people watching them, allowed more discussion about them -- and even gave a way for sites like ours to include clips from those shows in our posts. The day after Google announced the YouTube deal, Stephen Colbert joked that since so much of YouTube's traffic was based on clips of his show (which actually resulted in him starting a challenge that generated a ton of interest), Google obviously owed him a lot of money (yes, amusingly, that clip is still up there). Apparently, that lack of paying up means no more clips -- and less publicity for any of those Comedy Central shows. It may be their right, but that doesn't make it smart.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
southpark?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
southpark?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Maybe Comedy Central should pay Youtube
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Agreed
I wonder if those guys are playing company politics and don't really believe it is in their best interest to stay out of the distribution. Like it or not, distribution medium is part of content creation; there is a reason they chose to do a TV show and not a movie, or a radio show. Right?
If those guys would take a stand to Comedy Central/Viacom and say, "These shows are available over cable for "free" there is no reason they shouldn't be available over the internet for "free",' I think it would carry alot of weight.
Comedy Central has a great online video distribution method with the Motherload, which they tout just about endlessly. They should follow in the footsteps of ABC and other stations and allow people to stream actual shows for free at their website. Or just hand it over to GooTube for free.
This iTunes/Google Video bit with paying for season passes to TV shows is extortion. I mean if you want to subscribe to a month of the Daily Show and Colbert Report on iTunes, you are better off signing up for a full cable package with Comcast. The pricing is ridiculous. Its TELEVISION! There is advertising! Include the advertising put the shows on Bittorrent, and Gootube, and Motherload. Have EVERYONE watching your TV show, isn't that what they want???
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: GoroUnreal
[ link to this | view in thread ]
For example, let's say I make a movie. I own all of the rights. I license the rights for a DVD release to Sony. I license the TV rights to Comedy Central. Until recently, that would be about it. But now there's an internet market, so I license the internet distribution to iTunes. Obviously I'm not going to get a good internet distribution deal if the show is already freely available online, right? And obviously, in this example, Comedy Central does not have internet rights to my show. So they're required to pull the plug on my show on YouTube.
You can complain all you want about how things need to work better, but unfortunately creators can only work within the system that exists. Little-by-little it can and will change, but for right now we're stuck with it, and circumventing it takes money out of people's pockets.
There have always been little gray areas and circumventing in the past, but without the internet it didn't have the volume to really matter. Now it matters a lot.
Again, you can go ahead and hate it, but at least now you've hopefully got a slightly better idea of why some things happen.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PVRs
The sad thing is, not to long from now I'm sure no one will be able to do this. As is, TV tuners for computers aren't able to tune to digital cable or satellite (unless the provider makes the card). Wont be long until you can't export these shows to any usable format on the computer, making it completely impossible to effectively backup to hard media.
They wanted a new form of home recording to replace VHS, but now they want to basically restrict all the freedoms VHS gave the home user. It's completely insane! I still hold out in hopes for the JohnnyXh4x0rEVERYMAN that breaks these formats and DRMs so we that have paid our time or money for these programs can do what we will with them.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Single Mothers
What was I trying to say again?... oh yeah, the Internet Public is the mom, YouTube is the kid and Comedy Central is you. CC is all smiles and shit while YouTube does whatever the hell it wants, cause the Internet Public, a whole new entertainment market, thinks they're "connecting". Until of course YouTube finally tests CC's patience just a tad too much.
Ok, maybe it isn't such a great metaphor. Still, word to the wise; don't give the kid any candy if you're planning on staying the night.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
They must have sharing sites to suppliment service
Hopefully they can just leave the sharing (Bittorrent; YouTube) sites for people who need extra content to supplement their services and support them with ads. Maybe better deal scan be made or your service can somehow access this content legally if they don't carry a product.
Right now the online music industry is 2 billion a year vs 8 billion a year for CDs. Pretty soon online will eclipse CDs, I think, or maybe people might switch to flash RAM if they want a form of portability. But basically it is their main industry so they should rewrite copyrights to secure this.
Basically it should remain like it always has to avoid confusion. People tend to make copies of stuff for their friends/family/acquaintances who just haven't had the time or access to get it from their daily money dump into Hollywood.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Agreed
Where the hell do you live, free cable? Therefore the show is not free.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
South Park
[ link to this | view in thread ]
a little overstretched?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
YouTube and Comedy Cenrtral
This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Comedy Central claiming that this material is infringing:
and then they listed 1 of the clips. I got 2 of these emails while at work and before I could do as they asked they suspended my account. Im not sure exactly what "suspended" means to YouTube though...is it closed down forever or just temporarily? I dont know. YouTube is notorious for not responding to members email requests for an explanation as to why they take the actions they do.
Considering the high number of views my site was getting on the Daily Show clips I have to wonder why Comedy Central would take this action? These werent entire shows. Most were no more than 5 min in length. Comedy Central seems to be cutting off its nose to spite its face. Also if YouTube is saying all Comedy Central material has been removed theyre on drugs. I just did a search for "Jon Stewart" at YouTube and got over 3000 results.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Idk...
I think they did this because if you go to comedy central.com you will see that you can view last nights episodes, maybe they figure why have them somewhere else when they can be on Their website. When Youtube wasn't owned by a mult billion dollar comapany(Google) it didn't matter but now, why give your commetition help?
Another note is it won't help Comedy Central making enemys with Google, Google will win. All then need to do technically is find one site having one of the three shows being shown, and they can sue Vicaom for disgrimination...who wants to face google?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: southpark?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
More on the matter at hand, wouldn't it make sense for Comedy Central and Google to work out a seperate deal? Have Google put ads during commercial breaks and Google pays a portion of their income to Comedy Central (or Viacom, or whatever)? Youtube *could* force the content to have commercials in it if they wanted while preventing the posting of episodes by others. You could argue that the people might just pause it and fast forward during commercial breaks, but if they disabled the fast forward option, people would be required to view the commercials (thus, making the advertising companies happy). If the show was still free to the internet audience, I don't think anyone would waste their time trying to make bootleg versions of the show...especially knowing it would be removed.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: a little overstretched?
Before South Park was on TV it was a short video that was only available online. It got passed around like crazy, which was how they ended up getting a show on Comedy Central...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I don't think I ever watched comedy central until I seen a couple videos on the web from them.
Now... as they are jumping on the 'screw the consumer' bandwagon, I'll turn it right back off again.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
On what is your opinion based? Wishful thinking or
[ link to this | view in thread ]
A very basic concept
Therefore, my advice to Comedy Central - or any other network such as whoever hosts Lost or Survivor - is to be selective. Ask youtube/google to remove only clips in which the ads have been removed, while leaving the clips with advertising online for anyone to see. Evenetually, the people who upload these shows to Google will begin not clipping the ads out, and in doing so, bith the consumers and Comedy Central win. In fact, this gives the network an edge (especially if they can generate statistics on who is watching, similar to TV Arbitron ratings) because they can show potential advertisers that they've got an entire market (the Google watchers) cornered.
If I'm an advertising executive working for Toyota (who recently bought Scion, some really cool cars that they market to the younger crowd who often also watch the Daily Show and Southpark) then I'm probably going to buy ad space on Comedy Central either way, but if I find out that there's 30% additional viewership on the net which otherwise would either miss the show or not know about it who are also vastly within the Scion target demographic, then from my point of view, it's that much more targeted and I'm likely to spend extra money to increase ads during those shows, which means Scion sells more cars, Comedy Central sells more ads, and in the mean time the show itself gets more viewers.
I guess I'm simply saying that I agree they should pull some of the clips -especially the clips that are too short to include an ad anyway - but there's a really good chance for Comedy Central to use this to their advantage by only pulling the Google clips that hurt them instead of making tis vast sweep and pulling everything.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
re: A very basic concept (by Tack)
Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not arguing against against internet distribution, I'm merely a commenting about why Comedy Central might have had the videos pulled-- about why it might have been out of their hands and against what they'd *want* to do. There can definitely be an advantage to having things on YouTube etc. but Comedy Central may not have the legal right to permit it for these shows.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
If I were Sumner Redstone, I'd recognize that having CC shows on YouTube had driven up the ad rate on CC and given me a lot more money. But... neither of us are Sumner Redstone.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Election Propoganda Blackout
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Consumption
50, 100, 250? What?
If I already pay for cable why can't I also consume the media when I want? We have a timeshift issue here and I want to consume my media when I want not when someone who isn't paying me tells me I can!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Just one more example....
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
money,money,money
it all boils down to money like normal
mike
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Yikes.
Eh. Should we all going around sounding like an infante terrible? Pounding our tables with our spoons until we get what we want without earning it (whether purchase or gift)? 5 years from now, what will be the next crop of "gimme", virtual mug material, who's makers just don't "get it". Maybe Ford should be giving away most of its cars for free as advertisement. God! Get with it, Ford! No wonder your company is in the shitter. Goodness knows, wanting it real bad, makes the creator of said object an evil despot with no soul for not giving it to us how we like it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
TV Sucks
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Yikes.
Hmm. That's not quite what we're saying, so I apologize if I haven't been clear. The point is that it *is* helping them to grow their market, and that it's short sighted to think otherwise.
. Nevermind the fact that you are making episodes available through iTunes and other outlets for SALE... this is free... um... advertisment for stuff people... um, might NOT have bought anyway.
Now, we're not ignoring that at all. Our point is that the potential to use it as free advertisement won't just outweigh the ability to sell it overtime, but as other video producers recognize this, any site that still tries to charge for videos will get a smaller and smaller segment of the market.
Eh. Should we all going around sounding like an infante terrible? Pounding our tables with our spoons until we get what we want without earning it (whether purchase or gift)? 5 years from now, what will be the next crop of "gimme", virtual mug material, who's makers just don't "get it".
Again, as I've said probably a thousand times, this has nothing to do with a sense of entitlement, and everything to do with recognizing where the market is going so that these guys don't get run over by the bus that is the market.
Maybe Ford should be giving away most of its cars for free as advertisement. God! Get with it, Ford! No wonder your company is in the shitter. Goodness knows, wanting it real bad, makes the creator of said object an evil despot with no soul for not giving it to us how we like it.
Again, apparently I have done a bad job explaining this, or you don't actually want to read what we wrote. The point is that if the marginal cost is zero, the economics tells you that price will eventually be zero. That's not true in the case of cars, so, no, we would never say that Ford needs to give away cars for free.
You see? What we're talking about here is basic economics. We support it with actual economic points. It's not whining about getting something for free, and it's got nothing to do with what's "good" or "bad" or "moral" or not. It's simply a recognition of what the economics makes clear the market direction is -- along with some suggestions on how to capture that market.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
Not quite. How many people were pointing to the videos on comedycentral.com? No one. That's because it's MUCH, MUCH easier to point to them on YouTube. This is about setting it up so people can watch the videos in the ways that best matches their needs. Not only that, it saves Comedy Central on their bandwdith bill...
They should have jsut written a video sharing site themselves instead of buying one for so much money.
Funny that you call people clueless above, but don't even seem to know that Google has a video sharing site that they built themselves, and which people barely used compared to YouTube...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Election Propoganda Blackout
[ link to this | view in thread ]
People are so hypocritical and so in denial. They download a zillion things illegally, then buy a tiny handful at retail (CDs, DVDs, legal downloads, etc.) and say "see? I told you this free advertising would lead to sales!" Totally ignoring the fact that they get 99% of the stuff for free and pay for *maybe* 1%. Stop rationalizing. Stop making excuses. Stop living in denial. People have a right to earn a living from things they make. And they have a right to license it to various distribution channels. I could make the greatest movie ever made but only let three friends watch it. That's life. Sorry.
And again, for the hard of reading, IT'S NOT NECESSARILY UP TO COMEDY CENTRAL!!! THEY MOST LIKELY DON'T EVEN HAVE THE LICENSE RIGHTS TO ALLOW THE STUFF TO STAY UP ON YOUTUBE!!! So stop complaining about them until you know the facts.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
YuyTube
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Yikes.
I understand what you're saying, and yes, the Ford comparison is both facetious BUT it is also relevant. As corporations have been slow to SUE companies like YouTube, it's clear that runaway hits like the Lazy Sunday video and results like those from "Nobody is Watching" have gotten positive industry attention.
The problem inevitably surfaces however, that an entire industry can be destroyed if the process of adopting new technological paradigms is not entered into "correctly". What determines "correct"? Results. Results are measured by goals, and presumably center around total revenue and return on investment. If ABC.com has found its online offerings to be fantastically successful, why would they risk those results by allowing the same content to be available from another website that does not earn them revenue? Moreover, on entry into the deal with Apple, ABC met with storms of protests from its network affiliates, due to the possibility that the viewing audience (and thus Neilsens, and commercial revenue) might be adversely impacted by next-day-releases of certain programming (a fear that would not be totally unfounded).
Depending on the demographic of course, these are real legal and logistical concerns. Allowing viewers to simply upload and publish any copyrighted content they like at any time, available globally... cuts right to the core of a very complex set of business interests. This becomes even more relevant in Q1 2007, if Apple succeeds in bringing Internet streamed content to the television, as the current trends imply that digital downloads will begin to encroach upon the territory of terrestrial/digital television.
If customers by and large, begin to expect "non-commercial" FREE versions of a particular shows on services like YouTube, uploaded by their peers with NO regard for approval or compensation, suddenly the creator's main avenue for revenue and business agreements, become distorted as the unofficial unendorsed model begins to gain momentum. Can these "free" outlets actually "satisfy demand? Could other demands be satisfied more easily than today by illegal physical media vendors, using the same online sources?
There stands, undeniably, the law of unintended consequences. With billions of dollars riding on the future, I don't believe that "caution" and "control" are words that should be excluded from any content distributors vocabulary.
One might make the assumption that the potential audience for any content is infinite, but I would bet for every company that thought free giveaways were a good idea, even where cost is neglible... there are a dozen that paid a hefty price for very little gain.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
That's because they're advertising the wrong thing. They shouldn't be advertising the CD.
Totally ignoring the fact that they get 99% of the stuff for free and pay for *maybe* 1%.
Ok, this is totally missing the point. On the 99% there's a good chance they never would have heard of it anyway without being able to download it. See, by giving away the music for free, it expands the market of what people can listen to and opens up lots of new avenues for these bands and labels to make a lot more money.
People have a right to earn a living from things they make
Yup, and if the market tells them their product is worth $0, then they need to figure out how to sell something else. If I make little statues that no one wants to pay any money for, then it turns out I *don't* have "a right to earn a living from the things they make." The market tells you whether or not you can make a living. If it says you can't then you need to change what we're selling.
All we're saying is that the market is moving towards what basic economics says it should be, where price equals marginal cost. Thus, if you're in the industry, you need to adjust, or you'll be out of business.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
re: Mike
Please understand, I'm all for giving away SOME music. For example, pick one or two songs on an album and put them out there for free as advertising. But how is putting entire albumbs online going to engender huge sales? Can you please explain that mechanism?
As for your comment about the market telling artists that their product is worth $0, well, that's just silly. If something is available for free, people will take it, whether it's music or a car or a house-- not because they think it's worth nothing, but because they can get it for nothing. People pay for things because they can't get them for free. I do understand about market value, but illegally downloading free music sidesteps that issue. People aren't saying the music isn't worth ten bucks, they're saying they don't have to spend the ten bucks. There's a big difference. If CD sales had been falling off drastically before the advent of downloading then it might be inferred that people didn't feel they were worth the money.
As for marginal cost, I don't think you have a clue how much it costs to put out an album. Are there some people or groups that can put them out cheaply? Sure. But they're an exception. How do you do a classical album cheaply? Just because the distribution method (CDs or downloads) is inexpensive doesn't mean the cost of creating it is minimal. I, for one, don't want to have every movie I see be a $20,000 cheapie just because those are the only ones that can make money. Here's a better idea: Don't steal.
If albums, movies, etc. are made on the super cheap, how are people supposed to make a living? Where's the incentive to do it? If the financial returns are so small that only ultra-low budget projects can get made, then no one's going to want to do it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: re: Mike
Well, first of all, music has really only been widely available for free for 7 years, but beyond that... the problem is that the industry has still been unable to embrace it. That is, they still haven't figured out how to use that free music to their advantage. That's why there's a problem.
An aggregate fall in sales is actually meaningless for a variety of reasons. First of all, studies have shown that the reason CD sales have fallen have had to do with many external factors, including a recession (you remember?) as well as a lot more competition for the entertainment dollar.
But, more importantly, CD sales is meaningless, because the whole damn point of what we've been trying to explain is that they shouldn't think of themselves as selling CDs any more, but selling a variety of things having to do with the band.
The bands that *have* embraced this (many of which we've discussed here) have found that their revenue (not necessarily CD sales, but overall revenue) has gone way up.
As for your comment about the market telling artists that their product is worth $0, well, that's just silly. If something is available for free, people will take it, whether it's music or a car or a house-- not because they think it's worth nothing, but because they can get it for nothing.
Again, you miss my point (or I explained poorly). I'm not talking about unauthroized downloads at all. I'm talking about the musicians who embrace this and realize they should give away their music. What happens then is that as more musicians embrace this, the ones who don't will be priced out of the market. It's called competition.
As for marginal cost, I don't think you have a clue how much it costs to put out an album.
And apparently you have no clue what marginal cost is. I actually am acutely aware of how much it costs to put out an album, but I'm also quite aware that that's a *FIXED* cost, not marginal one.
If albums, movies, etc. are made on the super cheap, how are people supposed to make a living? Where's the incentive to do it? If the financial returns are so small that only ultra-low budget projects can get made, then no one's going to want to do it.
Again, you've confused two things. One is that the market is going to force this to happen one way or the other, and the second is that there are plenty of other business models that will allow musicians and movie makers to make MORE money. We've gone over them a thousand times around here, so go make use of the search engine and figure it out.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
lets go somewhere else
[ link to this | view in thread ]
get a job and stop begging for freebee's
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Southpark on YouTube
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Single Mothers
This is about the funniest thing I have ever read and didn't understand a word of it. The image is burnt into my brain.
Thanks for the late evening laugh.
DubleDeuce
[ link to this | view in thread ]