That is to say, allowing your precious media properties to give away free samples of itself can allow to increased viewership of said media property.
Absolutely SHOCKING?!
Actually, no. Verifying what many had thought to be intuitive for a long, long time, (including Jon Stewart, the Daily Show, and Comedy Central) CBS released a statement through YouTube’s press release department verifying that after its legal partnership with YouTube that viewership in the “Late Show with David Letterman”, “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” have all increased 5-7% (the “Early Show” with Katie Couric also increased, but they neglected to state the actual numbers) — thanks to video clips seeded through YouTube.
Of course, the real interesting thing is how the RIAA and music industry, as well as the movie industry, will view this as a whole. Sure, it is not a completely analogous situation, since 2-5 minute clips of a television shows do not equate to ALL of the television show, and, TV is constantly making new material; however, surely it does provide some incentive to start exploring “free” as an option. Particularly when many do have the opportunities to mine a “back end” — what with music having all kinds of swag and concert tickets to sell, and the movie industry with its follow up DVD (now Blu-ray and HD-DVD) products.
What we can look forward too, if I can extend a line of thought from Mr. Kirkpatrick of TechCrunch, is the TV networks working furiously to try and disintermediate YouTube into insignificance with the rise of their own broadband offerings; quite frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they used YouTube as a testing ground to see if it (free content) worked. Extending that line of thought, unless its expressly written into a contract somewhere, look for the balkanization of content, with choicer stuff going to their own services, and lesser stuff going to YouTube.
November 24th, 2006 at 9:53 pm | Permalink
Just for fun and to play devil’s advocate on Balkanization of Content theory…(which I don’t entirely disagree with)
What if YouTube can become the vehicle by which Google is able to create deals with more MSM & Content providers like CBS and thus capitalize on packaged AD syndication? It’s no secret that Google wants to get into other forms of “offline” yet targeted advertising syndication, while the networks & traditional media are trying to stem the tide of shifting ad spending (or at least capitalize on it)
CBS’s ratings increases directly correlate with them striking the deal, and I think Google can probably make a strong case to them that it’s YouTube’s user base/community that made this a success for them, not non-users coming to YouTube specifically for CBS content.
If a formal partnerships can be struck, this could be amicable for a TV network: capitalizing on an in-built video centric community, driving the online viewer to their real tubes when they’re offline, and most importantly, being able to tap into Google’s syndicated online advertising.
The last point assumes Google figures out a way to cut the TV networks in on their Ad syndication and vice versa…not that unrealistic though, given the ambitions of the former and the needs of the latter.
Just some food for thought.
Cheers,
Spinchange