When Viacom floats its day-old content on YouTube, Viacom doesn’t have to host the video, Viacom isn’t responsible for bandwidth, Viacom doesn’t need to support customers, and Viacom has access to one of the most powerful content-distribution channels ever invented for video moving pictures.
Viacom should be thanking its lucky stars that it doesn’t have to pay to have its lame old tired MTV content running on YouTube. Instead, Viacom made the self-destructive hubris to order “YouTubeto remove its content from the video Web site after deciding any marketing boost was illusory.” Via WSJ and FT.
The hubris? Well, “The move threatens to wreck Google’s attempts to cement commercial relationships with traditional media groups, which supply most material.” FT
Well, Viacom is not only messing with YouTube, a new brand and not old brands, but with Google, a brand that seriously owns the Internet.
“Viacom believes it has particular leverage because it specialises in youth-oriented and short-form video clips. It has previously demanded that clips from programmes such as Comedy Central’s Daily Show be removed.” FT
Well, truth be told, YouTube helped to make the Daily Show and The Colbert Report, not the other way around. YouTube is the king-maker.
This is an amazing opportunity for another property to become the new Daily Show or the new The Colbert Report.
Sorry Viacom, YouTube/Google is so much hotter than you. You have a seriously inflated ego and sense of self.
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