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Hearst-Argyle stations ink deal with YouTube

Posted by Cory Bergman on June 4, 2007

In a first for a local broadcaster, Hearst-Argyle stations will share in the revenue generated by video clips they post to YouTube. Starting today, five stations have launched channels on YouTube: KCRA, WCVB, WBAL, WTAE and WMUR. Other stations will follow soon. Each channel features a variety of notable clips, from news stories to promos to bloopers. Revenue details were not disclosed. (WSJ sub. req.)

A WCVB investigative piece plays on YouTube. One of the big upsides for Hearst-Argyle stations, besides the increased distribution and searchability, is their videos are now embeddable on local blogs.

Adds Rob in comments: “We started posting content at YouTube a few weeks back – sans revenue share – and the way we look at it, people get one more opportunity to see our content. Our ‘channel’ is /kxly. According to our traffic, its driven some YT users to our website, people are watching our content on YT and embedding it on their MySpace pages and our content is getting wider exposure beyond our website.”

  • boston

    At one point, ‘CVB had a 2+ minute loop of their logo as a video. (What interest is there in that?)

    As for the embedded video in blogs… Wouldn’t it make more sense to have the station’s website player have this function??

  • http://thedetroitchannel.com thedetroitchannel

    slam them all you want.

    at least there is a line in their press release that pretty much confirms the thinking i’ve been touting all along; there is value in your content OUTSIDE YOUR BROADCAST ‘BOUNDRIES’.

    the question now is, WILL they have the guts to leverage this for all its worth before the onslaught of followers?

    my guess is they will, but i’d suggest being less tv centric, it is the internet afterall.

    nice job guys.

    and i want to thank the person that tipped me off on this the other day. if i knew there was something of a wall street piece coming i could easily have held off. oh well, only a zillion people read LR, right?

  • http://www.fimoculous.com Rex

    Even more than “a first for a local broadcaster,” isn’t this a first for anyone? Is anyone else doing rev shares with YouTube? (Also, it seems like there’s little revenue to share, since there are no video ads in sight.)

  • http://www.youtube.com/kxly Rob

    We started posting content at YouTube a few weeks back – sans revenue share – and the way we look at it, people get one more opportunity to see our content. Our ‘channel’ is /kxly.

    According to our traffic, its driven some YT users to our website, people are watching our content on YT and embedding it on their MySpace pages and our content is getting wider exposure beyond our website.

    The only thing with Hearst-Argyle is, well, they’re friends with each other and their favorites are their own content. I’d reach out to the community and also look for great video clips cut by people in the community where I broadcast from to highlight as favorites.

  • Z

    The revenues are in World of Warcraft gold.

  • http://stevegarfield.com steve garfield

    WCVB is leading the way in Boston too with HD broadcasts,

  • cory

    CBS has a rev share with YT.

    And yes, all local tv site players should be embeddable.

  • http://www.lostremote.com/ Safran

    Just noticed that KCRA has disabled comments for a bunch of its videos – wondering why that would be. Other H-A stations have comments fully enabled, it looks like.

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