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February 21, 2007

Dvorak on Viacom: Old Media Boneheads

Head_in_sandJohn Dvorak concludes that Viacom just doesn't get it--to invoke the omnipresent Internet mantra of the Nineties (hat tip to Victor).  As Dvorak sees it, the 100,000 Viacom clips formerly uploaded on YouTube had no value except for marketing, and YouTube and Viacom fans were providing that marketing for free.  So Viacom basically flipped its middle finger at free marketing and tens of millions of fans and huffed on over to a firewalled beta site that won't have an audience until June.

To the extent that the 100,000 clips were, in fact, "three minutes of an old Daily Show," as Dvorak suggests, I agree.  To the extent that they were full-length copies of last night's Daily Show--with YouTube acting as a sort of universal TiVo containing all the programs you've missed--then Dvorak is overstating the case. 

Viacom would be quite reasonable to want to recoup some value lost if Daily Show viewers decided that they couldn't be bothered to watch TV at night when they could just catch up the next day at work.  My guess, however, is that full-length, next-day Daily Show-type videos were a tiny fraction of the 100,000--and, therefore, that Viacom is being, at best, myopic.

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Henry, look you really don't get shit bro. You do on some things. I love watching UFC and Pride Fights. I dont like paying $30- $50 for the pay per views. Do you know the fights end up on Youtube during the fucking pay per view bro. DURING. It's an amazing thing. UFC and Pride try to remove them ASAP but sometimes the people who post them call them by different names and post the links on certain message boards for free. So basically you get thousands of people watching the event for the price of one.

I love youtube but it's fucking destroying pay per views.

Last I checked, YouTube had a time limit of 10 minutes per clip or so, so the percentage of full length episodes of ANY show posted on YouTube would have to be zero.

As for the PPV fights, I don't watch them...but I can't imagine anyone inviting their friends over to huddle around a three inch bootlegged video of a fight on YouTube. If that is common, there are an awful lot of people that need to get a life!

Kevin you don't know shit either bro. Go to mma.tv

http://www.mma.tv/TUF/

You will see what i'm talking about.

Yeah, those Gay Pride fights are really something. Usually about 2 minutes after the bell rings for a round, a fighter finally comes out of the corner, flounces over to the other corner, and swipes the other with his boa. Take that, sissy! You can see why King Troll loves to watch.

(Peter Sellers in Being There: "I like to watch.")

Gerber, you punk ass bitch. Anyone from Price would OWN you. Look up Fedor or Silve.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I-6UVNpAXo

I think Henry has missed point altogether. It is not clip but it is content that Viacom after. I am in content business on internet with website which 30 million page views per month and online music. Value of content is expensive even when it is old. If Viacom does not stop Youtube, it will not only lose the ad revenue but future customer base.

Add to the comment to King Troll, Entire internet is migrating toward online TV and in next 2 to 4 years, cable may have serious competition. I have already seen live channels being brodcasted from China for CNN, Fox, HBO, Cartoon Network, Nick Jr on P2P basis and quality is good for 21 inch computer monitor on 1024 resolution. (For LCD/HDTV, quality may be issue.) this year, I watched superball on internet LIVE. Now, You can see NFL/CBS would be worried by customer base.

You may have read comment from the Mark Cuban who sold his brodcast channel to Yahoo in 1999 for the tune of several billion dollars. He had predicated that google is waiting for bunch of lawsuits.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/02/22/google-to-sure-up-youtube-copyright-protection

As I have indicated earlier, content is never free when it is produced professionally.

Well, Henry has never run any business. Raj, give him some break. Analyst always think one quarter not one year or ten year.

Chat-Sohbet

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