SubscribeWhat if Google dealt with content producers?
Posted in IPTV, Television, News on March 5th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Robert Young published and excellent article at GigaOm about YouTube’s recent relationships with major media companies. In it he wonders, right in the second paragraph, how long would it take for some media brand to cave in and strike a deal with Google. Just a few hours later a deal between the BBC and YouTube was announced.
The really interesting part of the article came a little later, when Young compared the current business model of broadcasters with what YouTube could one day do. Broadcasters own the distribution channel, they take a risk by buying contents from producers, hoping to profit by selling advertising against their programming. Right now Google is in a very similar position, they own the distribution channel (YouTube) and they are trying to buy the network’s programming upfront (by making money guarantees). Like the networks themselves, they hope to profit later on through advertisement.
Robert Young comes up with the following question: how long until Google decides to skip the networks and directly buy from the producer? From Google’s business model point of view, networks add little value to actual contents.
As it is right now, YouTube is beating all network sites combined, even without Viacom’s contents. The audience is here. This year, thanks to technologies such as this or this, or this for the mobile, Internet video contents can be watched on any TV. The technology is in place. Maybe then, it just takes one successful deal with a professional content producer and a sensible advertising strategy to start a new era for television contents broadcasting.
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Google: Better try to be the best video search!…
Google should concentrate on searching the other video websites. Why can’t they tell me that there are full chapters of The Simpsons or Veronica Mars on Veoh.com? The Youtube deal wasn’t necessary….
Trackback by Markus Goebel's Tech News Comments on March 5, 2007
As long as I know, this we’ll be the next step: making of Google Video a video search engine… something that starts to be really necessary.
Comment by Audrey on March 12, 2007