Still More YouTube Deals With Hollywood

COMMENTS (14)

• I dunno, that doesn’t look like much of a revenue stream to me. YouTube is a free site, the in-stream ads probably don’t bring in enough money in a year to cover a day’s dry cleaning on a scripted show.

  That looks to me like evidence the producers are desperate and grasping at straws. Maybe somebody will do some reporting on the revenue potential of these ads. Google is a publicly traded company, there must be some data somewhere on this stuff.

  Comment by Eyescribe — Thursday April 16, 2009 @ 11:17pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I can’t wait to see this! The second Youtube begins charging a dime – watch for the sudden massive decline in viewership, clickership, or whatever the hell they call it.

  The studios think they can USE Youtube and get away with murder. Just wait and see how the public turns on them on the day they slip in “We accept both VISA or MasterCard”…

  When you’ve had Free – you want Free.

  Not only that, if they begin to festoon every show with large amounts of commercials – I predict their viewership won’t be as big as their projections. Compare FOX’s free/loaded-with-commercials episodes of ’24′ vs all the downloads of torrents across the Internet, not to mention the many illegal streaming ’24′ videos that people are watching every day.

  Hey – don’t those morons remember NAPSTER? Ahhhhhh…since they started charging, I don’t see a huge revenue stream. Or am I just blind or something?

  Comment by LSM — Friday April 17, 2009 @ 12:55am PDT  Reply to this post

• The monetization of Digital Media will be succeeded through advertising and product placement. Charging on YouTube isn’t the issue. It’s the fact that the millions of hits (especially by unique IP addresses) will dictate huge revenue streams based on advertising and placement. YouTube has a huge and consistent base of IP addresses. That will be the key.

  And yes, the Unions are run by idiots who should have seen it coming and if not, at least had the foresight to have people around them who can intelligently foecast the future of digital media.

  Comment by Original Joe — Friday April 17, 2009 @ 7:47am PDT  Reply to this post

• Look – free aint a business model. You want to show your cat farting for free? Have at it. The question is, how do the creative unions slow and then stop, getting ripped off?

  Napster introduced “file-swapping” and it was all “that’s so cool!” and the artists were like “that’s sssooo…. cool?” and then Shawn Fanning got sued and the rest is history.

  It’s sort of like the Oklahoma land rush, or any other westward expansion, you get out there, you build your cabin, you plant your garden, and “Hey honey – it’s all fuckin FREE!” – then the Indians show up, cause, you know, it’s really, as far as precedent in practice, if not in law, their land, and if they don’t kill you and your whole family for pissing them off and stealing their shit, eventually the Man catches up with you, and, just like the Wiseguys, says “Ay – Oh! Just a little taste! We’re gonna tax a little bit, we’re gonna run some roads through here – cuts you off from your water source – Ay -OH! – that’s too f-in bad! You got a problem with dat? Lemme introduce you to da IRS – OH!”

  This is NO different, and the sooner makers of content and the people who paid for the content get around to the realization that there is:

  A. NO upside to giving it away (duh)

  and

  B. They HAVE to arrive at a monetization model that will become the norm, and they have to live with the consequences of, whatever, less innovation from the cat farters, whatever.

  All these sites: You Tube, Facebook, MySpace – it’s the SAME old shit “we want market share! If we can get dominant market share, we’re golden – the money will POUR IN!”

  But THEY’RE NOT MAKING ANY MONEY.

  And if the providers of content want to MAKE money off their content by providing it to these and/or other sites – Hulu etc. – they have to do one of two things: create a viable ad based business model (unlikely), or build the whole thing around a subscription system, (much more do-able and likely – you got it in your monthly cable package – you can watch it. You don’t? you can’t. Period)

  But, making content available to places like Hulu, then basically splitting the ad revenue, which is what is happening now, is not a sustainable model — not for SAG – that’s for damn sure – because actors don’t get A DIME.

  So, one has to wonder when the providers of content and the sites themselves are going to realize there is no way to show our work WITHOUT PAYING US.

  Right now? they are still dreaming, dreaming: sites and studios and networks – “how can we max this fucker out without paying anybody?”

  The sooner the creative unions get about the business of disabusing them of that notion, the better. It will take a war, as I’ve said for the last year.

  Let’s get on with it.

  Comment by Matt Mulhern — Friday April 17, 2009 @ 8:16am PDT  Reply to this post

• The in-stream advertising, if implemented, will kill this — nobody will watch ads on Youtube when they can Tivo the television broadcasts and eliminate the ads. With ads these programs are unwatchable in any medium.

  Comment by Apollo — Friday April 17, 2009 @ 8:49am PDT  Reply to this post

• There is no going backward, never has happened and certainly won’t start now. Google smashed profit projections and with only 10% of advertising being online, they have only one place to go, upward and onward. They control almost all of the search business and YouTube, which they also own, owns almost all of the video views. You would be a fool to think, with 17.8 billion in cash reserves, that they are not, if they don’t have it already, produced an effective way to advertise in video format. They have started already, and I believe doing it slowly to groom the viewer into the experience. Everything will be streamed through the net on VOD – and if you wrote it, you get 17 dollars after the two week free window! YAY!

  Comment by The Chicago Kid — Friday April 17, 2009 @ 10:05am PDT  Reply to this post

• Wait!!! You mean to tell me the brilliant writers for Fantasy Island, TJ Hooker, I Dream Of Jeannie, Barney Miller and ALF aren’t getting as much money from their amazing work playing on youtube as they should be?! This is the most tragic news story to hit in ages! How will they survive?!?! (Those of them that aren’t dead, of course.)

  Comment by ckn8@yahoo.com — Friday April 17, 2009 @ 11:18am PDT  Reply to this post

  • ckn8 causing trouble as usual

    Comment by ME — Tuesday March 30, 2010 @ 10:17am PDT  Reply to this post

• I truly fear that there is such a desperate mentality of giving away and overexposing product. Warners is the only savvy one reining the multiplatforming of their shows. The others are going to eat their hands off. You’re right, why watch 24 or anything else with ads or be tied to finding it on network if there are other options? Think about it, guys. Close the barn doors or you won’t have the income to finance these shows on their network (launching pad) homes.

  Comment by Whatthe — Friday April 17, 2009 @ 11:23am PDT  Reply to this post

• It’s just laying the base here. YouTube is still NOT PROFITABLE. It will be. I’m a YouTube content partner. I know of what I speak. And oh, yeah – subscribe my channel “bobjenz”

  Comment by BOBJENZ — Friday April 17, 2009 @ 12:05pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Barney Miller was a great show. Fantasy Island, I Dream of Jeannie and the others were successful enduring entertainment that puts most of the lame comedies and snoozefest procedurals to shame. I love modern television but giving all of this away– retro or modern– is promotion. You guys are spending the money and not making it.

  Comment by Whatthe — Friday April 17, 2009 @ 1:57pm PDT  Reply to this post

• any site that is just a current popular destination, as youtube is, and does not offer a particular unique service or software, will never be profitable. eventually, another site will become popular and that will be the end of youtube.

  Comment by z0l0ft — Friday April 17, 2009 @ 2:42pm PDT  Reply to this post

• In a week in which YouTube showed its strength and great worth — with the newsmaking videos of the disgusting duo from Domino’s and the delightful spinster singer from Scotland — you hate to see the online video giant lower itself with this stinky serving of Hollywood leftovers. The Sony and MGM linkups are old news.

  Comment by Glenn — Friday April 17, 2009 @ 6:21pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I’m watching The Blue Lagoon on YouTube right now. I could’ve watched or downloaded it illegally for years, but I started to watch it to check the quality out. I haven’t used Netflix for a while, but the quality of this is pretty good.

  Those who say that Hulu and such are doomed to fail are underestimating the convenience factor.

  Comment by GC — Friday April 17, 2009 @ 8:46pm PDT  Reply to this post