NBC
TV and YouTube: It’s All About the Money
Paul Kaputska hits the nail on the head: Viacom’s YouTube pulldown and the new NBC chief’s mad ramblings are just pathetic, impatient cries for more money.
That’s why even one of the big old lions, Sumner Redstone, is also saying publicly he’s ready to deal. Here he tells the Hollywood Reporter’s Germany bureau that content pulled down can easily be put back up if the price is right:
If YouTube would come along and offer us a deal that is commensurate with the value of the programming that we spend so many millions and so much time to create, we would certainly look at that.
So we guess it’s not really about the filtering after all. Just about where the money filters down to. And since Google is now taking steps to find more money in YouTube, maybe all will be well before long.
Of course, ailing Philippine TV network ABS-CBN is clearly the exception. I know they’re stupid enough to pull clips off YouTube thinking their own crappy little video paysite is any competition, but even I doubt they’re stupid enough to think a third-rate third-world station can blackmail the world’s top video site into giving them money.
Again, may I emphasize that I don’t care if TV networks want their manufactured content to fall off the YouTube charts. Call me crazy, but I’d rather watch real people with real talent who are willing to share it.
