(Am back after a brief blogging hiatus…)
After a banner week during which YouTube struck up pacts with the NHL and the BBC, this Washington Post piece looks at whether YouTube is struggling “despite dominance.”
On the one hand, you’ve got analyst-on-the-spot Josh Bernoff popping off about Gootube’s low-grade dealmaking skills. Bernoff says “When you negotiate with a media company, you have to demonstrate respect for their content,” buying into the Viacom-promulgated idea that Google failed to suck up enough to Viacom in its recent talks, harming itself in the process.
On the other hand, Standard & Poor’s Scott Kessler says that media companies need YouTube more than YouTube needs the media companies, an assessment that’s closer to the mark. YouTube has the traffic, even if the big media companies have the content.
So, if Viacom or NBC or any other big content provider won’t play ball, Google has dozens of other content providers to tap for its programming needs, including the NHL and the BBC. Over time, these alternative content providers will get a boost, the big media companies will lose Internet eyeballs, and YouTube will still be king.
Granted, YouTube would definitely be better off if it could land top media deals. But, the big content providers lose will most definitely lose out to the tier two content providers without a Google deal. There is only one YouTube (for now) but there are dozens, if not hundreds, of content providers.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 1:07 PM | Print | Comments (2)
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