Millions of netizens – including me – have taken a great liking to YouTube. And for good reason. You can find videos of practically anything you want. It’s given us the hilarious, the creative, the intriguing. I’ve learned a lot from watching some old videos and have found scenes of old movies that I loved and wanted to see again.
That being said, NBC’s recent closing of its channel on YouTube and pulling of its videos content show us that YouTube, as an entity, is far from being completely vital to content distribution. When push comes to shove, it is actually expendable. At least, that is, to big media companies that have significant amounts of valuable content.
NBC shut down its channel because they’re launching their own service, Hulu. A joint venture with News Corp., Hulu is set to launch in late October.
I’d say this is a good move by NBC. While it may initially cause some confusion at first, once it’s up an running, it will easily be found. The traffic that goes to Hulu will be 100% traffic for the site. On YouTube, someone can watch 10 minutes of something and then hop over to a video of a guy picking his nose. NBC will essentially own their traffic. They can measure it better, the can monetize it better. They’ll be able to create greater brand affinity and loyal communities of interest. The ROI could be excellent. The model is unproven at this point, but so is YouTube.
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