Viacom statement on YouTube
Cory Bergman February 2nd, 2007
“After months of ongoing discussions with YouTube and Google, it has become clear that YouTube is unwilling to come to a fair market agreement that would make Viacom content available to YouTube users. Filtering tools promised repeatedly by YouTube and Google have not been put in place, and they continue to host and stream vast amounts of unauthorized video. YouTube and Google retain all of the revenue generated from this practice, without extending fair compensation to the people who have expended all of the effort and cost to create it. The recent addition of YouTube-served content to Google Video Search simply compounds this issue. Virtually every other distributor has acknowledged the fair value of entertainment content and has taken deliberate steps to concluding agreements with content providers.
We have great respect for and loyalty to our audiences. We host more than 130 authorized web sites where millions of fans visit and interact with our content. Our internet portfolio has more visitors than any other entertainment company and we are always seeking distribution relationships to ensure that any of our products and services are easily accessible on every platform.
Our hope is that YouTube and Google will support a fair and authorized distribution model that allows consumers to continue to enjoy our very popular content now and in the future.”
12 Comments Add your own
1. invitedmedia | February 2nd, 2007 at 10:16 am
viacom had better watch it or google might just buy them up with the spare change found in the couches at goog’s exec. suite.
how many trillion is google valued at today???
2. Charles | February 2nd, 2007 at 10:43 am
How do you screw up a big-time deal with a major player like Viacom? Don’t deliver what you promised them.
3. mean old mr. market | February 2nd, 2007 at 11:20 am
who you callin’ a “major player”???
I, mean old mr. market, presently value the google enterprise at nearly SIX TIMEZ that of viacom; $147B vs. 25B.
4. discreet_chaos | February 2nd, 2007 at 11:37 am
Viacom owns MTV Networks; MTV Networks owns Comedy Central and iFilm. Due to this arrangement, I assume there is an agreement in place and that the Comedy Central clips will remain available through the alternative embeddable player.
5. m1cha3l | February 2nd, 2007 at 11:40 am
The relative sizes of the companies have no bearing on the fact that property owned by one has been appropriated by another for its own gain; their market values are beside the point. However, I would like to mention that a generation or two ago the CATV companies used the same tactic to provide programmng to subscribers, at no cost to themselves, and won court battles when the broadcasters objected. This might be used as a precedent by Google to defend its appropriation.
6. Bob Jones | February 2nd, 2007 at 11:50 am
Viacom are a major player in the entertainment industry, Google might be worth more and blogs and news outlets might like to bang on about how Google will take the entertainment industry by storm and how they will revolutionize it … but the most important part is Google doesn’t have any content to do that, they need to sign contents with companies like Viacom.
Sergey Brin might be a very smart man, but I don’t think he’d write very good TV shows.
7. mean old mr. market | February 2nd, 2007 at 11:52 am
no, but it sure has a bearing on who’s T-H-E “major player”, so please don’t misconstrue mean old mr. market’s comment.
8. Bob Jones | February 2nd, 2007 at 12:02 pm
In the entertainment sector, Viacom is the major player.
Google doesn’t have any power there, and the law certainly isn’t on their side at this point.
With YouTube, Viacom is the major player in the negotiations … not Google.
9. Charles | February 2nd, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Take away all the illegally-uploaded video clips and YouTube is pretty much just “America’s Funniest Home Videos” on-demand.
Viacom owns MTV networks and Comedy Central, channels most watched by the “key” demographics, the same age braket that goes on YouTube.
Frankly, this isn’t so much about who is a bigger player or who isn’t, who has a more inflated market share than the other. It’s about a business deal, one that YouTube, by what we’re hearing from Viacom’s side, failed to uphold. Has Google/YouTube release anything, giving a explenation for their side?
10. thedetroitchannel | February 2nd, 2007 at 2:42 pm
i think where we differ is i think both companies are in the same business; ADVERTISING.
in that respect, mean old mister market is telling you that viacom’s approach is old and inefficient when it comes to gross dollars in sales and net dollars in profits and google’s approach is the new model where a heapin’ helpin’ goes right to the bottom line.
google’s profits just tripled from their advertising business. how much has viacom’s? 10% maybe?
11. discreet_chaos | February 2nd, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Yeah, detroit, but when Google has been around as long as Viacom, their growth rate would probably be the same.
12. thedetroitchannel | February 3rd, 2007 at 7:37 am
true.
i hate it when reality is introduced into the mix.
Leave a Comment
(Please keep URLs out of the comment body or the spam filter will block you.)Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed