YouTube hits milestone, chats with CBS

Cory Bergman July 19th, 2006

Lots of juicy YouTube news today. First, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves sat down with YouTube founder Chad Hurley for a 45-minute meeting at the Allen & Co. media conference in Sun Valley. Several reporters witnessed the meeting and said Moonves “marveled” at YouTube’s audience. “He asked how YouTube might be able to direct more traffic to Web sites owned by CBS,” reported AP’s Michael Liedtke. “The meeting ended with Moonves concluding that CBS should start posting daily snippets of its programming on YouTube.” Meanwhile, coincidentally, CBS News President Sean McManus said the network shouldn’t have hit a milestone of 100 million videos served every day. The company says that makes up 60% of all online video traffic. Now you believe that number, YouTube serves up more video online than Hollywood, the networks, cable channels, local TV and the major portals combined. Hey, maybe this user-generated video thing has some legs, eh? (Thanks, Don!)