IP Democracy: NBC-U & News Corp. - Second Coming of Web Video?

I traveled from San Jose to DC today and while I was en route a miracle happened, or so it seemed. The earth-changing event is, of course, the announcement by NBC-U and News Corp. that the two companies will create “the largest Internet video distribution network ever.”

Based on the unbelievable amount of breathless coverage and instant analysis of the decision by the two giant entertainment companies to offer thousands of hours of movies, TV shows and clips on a web-based ring of network affiliates (so to speak) you’d think that this still-fuzzy alliance is the second coming of Internet video. (That phrase, “the second coming,” occurred to me while I was scanning the mountain of blog items and press articles, and see that the always-fun-to-read Mathew Ingram beat me to the punch in using it in this context.)

Make no mistake, this deal is big news. Two of the world’s top TV programmers and movie distributors are going to offer in coordinated, pooled fashion their best TV shows and films online in a serious attempt to reach mass numbers. Not only are NBC-U and News Corp. going to develop a media player that will play the content on a central site, and presumably on their own individual corporate-run sites, but this player and the content will also appear across a major network of Internet video portals and sites, including AOL, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo!, which collectively reach 96% of the Internet audience, the companies contend.

Other “affiliates,” such as IGN and iVillage, will be brought on board over time. NBC-U and News Corp. will offer some of the content on a premium basis, but there is no doubt that this is a big advertising play — the companies will sell ads across the affiliated sites in combination with their regular TV packages.

Although early reports of this alliance had speculated that NBC-U and News Corp. were cooking up a YouTube killer, this deal is nothing of the sort. It’s merely traditional mass market, advertising-support TV transported to the Internet. While some clips and short films will appear in the circulated mix of videos, this is no YouTube, or at least YouTube in its current structure.

Fox’s Peter Chernin said straight out during a media call today that “This is obviously not a YouTube killer.”

“We’ve said for a long time we believe in the power and benefit of ubiquitous distribution. We are in fact willing to talk to anybody provided they are willing to meet our economic terms and our copyright protection terms.”

It’s a bold move and a smart decision by the tradtional TV content providers, which are being bitten to death by the rapidly proliferating video choices that appear on the Internet (a good chunk of which they own anyway). But, come on, these are broadcast networks and Hollywood studios looking to seize control of a world they barely understand, a world that anyone barely understands.

It’s tough enough for a savvy Internet operator like Google to navigate the rocky shoals of web-based video, but I can tell you that these guys (NBC-U, News Corp., along with Viacom and Time Warner and everybody else in Hollywood) are almost impossible to organize. If any evidence of the difficult feat of getting these kind of companies to move into action, work in a coordinated way, were needed, Dawn Kawamoto and Greg Sandoval provided it in their write-up of the media call convened to discuss the deal.

News of the new company appeared to be rushed out. Some of the partners were confused about important details, such as whether all of the content would be offered free of charge (most will but not movies and some TV shows). Organizers have yet to name the company or hire an advertising sales staff.

And I love Mike Arrington’s write-up of the media call, replete with side commentary (“They were really hazy on answers here,” “there are some serious red flags popping up around this service”) that hints that the two studios are putting on a big show with this announcement, with not a lot of pedal-to-the-metal forethought about how all this will work.

The new video-rich site of the venture (which of course doesn’t have a name yet, not even a working one because that would require three meetings, six phone calls, ten blackberry messages and a mogul-brokered deal to soothe the egos of all involved) is slated for launch this summer. Although I sound jaded, I’m really not. It’s definitely a step in the right direction, and a big development that solidifies the legitimacy of the Internet as a video distribution medium. But, NBC-U and News Corp. working hand-in-glove? Time will tell.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on March 22, 2007 11:16 PM to IP Democracy