NBC's Love/Hate Affair With YouTube Firmly In The Hate Position

from the bye-bye-youtube dept

Perhaps no company has had more of a love-hate affair with YouTube than NBC. On practically a weekly basis over the past year or so it seems like NBC's official position on YouTube switches back and forth. First, they hated YouTube because the SNL Andy Samberg video "Lazy Sunday" was widely available on it, requiring NBC's lawyers to demand it get taken down. This seemed odd to us, as it was a great promotional vehicle for Saturday Night Live. And, in fact, for a little while, it seemed that NBC agreed, as they set up an official NBC channel on YouTube where they released lots of content, including newer Samberg videos. NBC execs started to talk about how great YouTube was for promotional purposes and some even hoped that NBC would put more content on YouTube. Of course, then Jeff Zucker took over, and one of his first public statements involved slamming YouTube even as his executives were talking about how useful a tool it was. NBC soon filed an amicus brief against YouTube in a lawsuit against the company and, more recently, have been speaking out against the company. Perhaps this isn't too surprising, as the company has teamed up with News Corp in a weak attempt to create its own online video property.

So, with that flip-flopping in mind, it should come as little surprise that NBC has now completely shut down its official channel on YouTube according to Valleywag. This is pretty weak, though, as many people who enjoyed getting NBC content that way now have had that rug pulled out from under them. NBC still seems to be under the entirely wrong belief that people will come to them. People want to get content however it's convenient. That means offering it in a variety of places and a variety of formats so that people are more likely to view the content. Taking away options doesn't help things, it just pisses off more fans.

Filed Under: tv, videos, youtube
Companies: google, nbc

CBS More Focused On Keeping Fans Happy

from the keep-the-fans-happy,-and-business-models-work-out dept

It's fascinating to watch the different approaches that competitors NBC and CBS are taking to dealing with the online video market. NBC has seemed almost to have a new strategy every day, happily putting videos up on YouTube, pulling them down from YouTube, being happy with YouTube, being upset with YouTube, putting videos on iTunes, pulling them down from iTunes. It's as if NBC doesn't have a real strategy at all -- or, at the very least, different factions within the company "win" every few weeks or so. In contrast, you have CBS, who recognized the importance of online video at nearly the same time as NBC. However, rather than going with a constantly shifting target, CBS's strategy has evolved in a pretty straight line. The company quickly realized that distribution and awareness was a lot more important than protection and focused on getting videos available wherever people wanted to view them (not just where CBS could control everything). That meant syndicating the content as widely as possible and even embracing the benefits from people sharing CBS content on YouTube and other sites. That's why it's not too surprising to hear CBS' Les Moonves respond to questions about NBC's decision to take its content off iTunes by saying that CBS is thrilled with iTunes and sees no reason to follow NBC's decision. The really telling statement is this one: "We look at iTunes as much as a promotional vehicle for our shows as a financial vehicle." That's why NBC is focused on putting up barriers for viewers, while CBS appears to be focused on taking them down.

Filed Under: itunes, online video, piracy, tv
Companies: apple, cbs, nbc

Group Behind 'To Catch A Predator' Claims Wikipedia Is A Corporate Sex Offender

from the might-be-a-bit-personal dept

We've seen all sorts of criticisms of Wikipedia over the years, but this might be a first. Apparently the group "Perverted Justice," the controversial online vigilante group that tries to lure online pedophiles out into the open (and is the group that is used by NBC Dateline's equally controversial "To Catch A Predator" show) is now claiming that Wikipedia is "a corporate sex offender." Apparently, if you follow the links from Wikipedia to Perverted Justice's site, it has a screed against Wikipedia -- claiming "each article on Wikipedia that deals with any issue relating to pedophiles or internet predators has been heavily targeted and edited by the online pedophile activist movement." Of course, there's a bit more to the story. Apparently, Perverted Justice's founder was recently barred from editing Wikipedia after people felt that he was flaming other users, deleting any negative reference to his organization, accusing others of being pedophiles without substantiation and when asked about it, replying "with invective." This suggests the anger at Wikipedia is a bit more about the guy being barred than any sort of official Wikipedia issue. If anything, it seems like yet another case where Wikipedia's neutral point of view has resulted in confusion. There's no doubt that Perverted Justice's reason for being is good -- but calling Wikipedia a sex offender seems quite extreme and unreasonable.

Filed Under: dateline, nbc, pedophiles, perverted justice, sex offenders
Companies: nbc, wikipedia

NBC-iVillage Marriage Already Loveless And Dull After One Year

from the nice-and-functional dept

Last year, when NBC bought out iVillage, the women-oriented online content firm, it looked like a classic case of major media company thinking it could evolve by buying its way onto the internet. Predictably, the company tried to portray the move as something more than a land grab, trotting out terms like "synergies", as it extolled the potential for cross promotions between iVillage and the Today show. The New York Times reports on how the marriage is doing one year later, and not surprisingly, many of these lofty ambitions haven't panned out. Although ad revenue has been solid, iVillage hasn't shown itself to be a strategic asset. Cross promotions with Today have been a total flop and other attempts to put iVillage content on TV have also been a failure. At this point, the deal is panning out very much as we anticipated. From a purely monetary perspective, you could argue that NBC made out okay. But if it really thought that the purchase could help it successfully orient its business around the internet, iVillage hasn't had much of an effect.

Filed Under: content, internet
Companies: ivillage, nbc