With reports that major Hollywood studios would band together and build their own video-sharing site, a bit from Variety might be in order. The authoritative trade magazine has been following talks between CBS, News Corp, Viacom, Disney, and NBC Universal as they explore how to control their distribution, or at least to be compensated for distributing their content online.
So far, no deal, but Google wants them to use YouTube, of course. Variety says something might happen by the end of January.
Everyone is striking up deals as they can. They all have their own sites, of course, and various shows are available through iTunes (but that has generated less than $70 million for content owners in over a year). So what has them in this predicament? Well, like with everyone else, YouTube and user generated content caught the "big boys" off guard. Here are a couple of quotes:
"They're probably a year too late," said Jeff Pulver, founder and chairman of Pulver.com, a New York company that organizes a conference called Video on the Net. "The networks know they have to do something. They have good intentions, and big brand names, but at the end of the day, these joint ventures never deliver on their promise."
Jeff Jarvis, an associate professor at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in New York who also runs the blog BuzzMachine.com, points out that the promotional platforms the networks have may not help much in launching a vid site. "You can't advertise it on TV, because the person who's watching TV is 59½ years old," he argued. "That's not the demographic you want to attract."
No comments:
Post a Comment