Viacom: Traffic up since YouTube purge

Thanks to a surge in revenue from its movie division, Viacom said its Q4 profit nearly tripled over a year ago. On the earnings call, Viacom brass released some interesting details on its digital growth. “We are very pleased to have more traffic on our sites since we took down our video from YouTube because we are able to monetize that as opposed to someone else doing so,” said CEO Philippe Dauman, who released January year-over-year growth numbers in unique users for ComedyCentral.com (+90 percent) and MTV.com (+55 percent.) Astute Lost Remote readers will remember the Viacom purge began on February 2nd, and Dauman doesn’t release February-over-January numbers, so it’s unclear if the sites’ growth rate accelerated or remained the same. (Hitwise reports that visits to YouTube grew 14 percent in the two weeks after the takedown.) Meanwhile, MTVN’s virtual worlds — Virtual Laguna Beach and Virtual Hill — now have over 360,000 registered users. Dauman said MTV’s digital revenue is up more than 60 percent, and he believes Viacom will reach its goal of $500 million in digital revenues in ’07. “Down the road, it will be harder and harder to segregate digital from the traditional media growth,” Dooley said. “Two-thirds of our digital ad sales growth sold in tandem as one package negotiated with the advertisers. They are melding together faster and faster as we go quarter to quarter.” Which I imagine contributes to the challenge at media companies today to try to figure out how to account for internet revenues apart from TV revenues.