The Chicago Tribune Phil Rosenthal Media Column: Media Giants Are Learning the Value of Sharing

Mar 23, 09:22 AM

Current Headlines: By Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Tribune

Mar. 23--In response to YouTube, NBC and Fox are launching TheirTube.

General Electric's NBC Universal and Fox parent News Corp. don't have an actual name yet for their new ad-supported online video network, announced Thursday and set to launch this summer in partnership with Time Warner's AOL, Microsoft's MSN and Yahoo Inc.

But that's the basic concept.

The media giants want people to watch and share their TV shows, video clips and movies, as they do with Google Inc.'s YouTube.com, fueling that site's tremendous growth.

They simply want to have more of a handle on it, so they can protect and profit from their content, even as they allow computer users to see and share it.

This venture is being cast in some circles as a rival to YouTube, and, like YouTube, it will allow users to upload their own videos and share videos posted on the site elsewhere.

In truth it's an answer to a problem YouTube presents for them, a problem Viacom Inc. and estranged sibling CBS Corp. sought to solve with separate strategies last week. They see billions of dollars slipping away through unauthorized Internet viewing and distribution of their material, but they also see the value of getting that material seen and promoted online.

CBS, you'll recall, cut a revenue-sharing deal to showcase its NCAA basketball tournament clips on YouTube while pointing viewers back to its own sites. Viacom just two days earlier filed a $1 billion copyright infringement suit against YouTube because users have posted its clips on the site, and Viacom seeks to restrict content such as Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" or Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob SquarePants" to sites it owns.

Interestingly enough, Viacom and CBS were among the media companies involved when the on-again, off-again talks for this new venture began almost 15 months ago. They dropped out along the way, though NBC Universal and News Corp. execs indicated a willingness to distribute other companies' wares, provided they agreed to economic terms that probably don't include ownership.

News Corp. President and Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin, who called the venture "a game changer for Internet video" in that it will provide a "legitimate, easy, widespread way" to play and pass along programming, said he has discussed a potential partnership in the new venture with Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, which bought YouTube last year for $1.65 billion.

"Eric Schmidt is considering this," Chernin said. "Obviously, this is not a YouTube killer."

What NBC and Fox are doing is recognizing the value of being able to use the Internet to reach audiences that will help expose and endorse them to others.

They see that a new generation of viewers is coming along that is replacing channel surfing with the recommendation of friends and others. In effect, they're saying they will supply the content, you get your friends to watch.

"That's marketing nirvana, isn't it? And that's the angle no one is getting on this story," said Jeff Jarvis, who blogs about the evolution of media at BuzzMachine.com.

"They're trying to be part of this incredible new recommendation engine out there that's controlled by the people. ... Viacom's cut themselves off from that. They're only going to put 'Daily Show' clips on Comedy Central's site.

"But that's the old view of media, which says you have to come to us. The new view of media is we're going to come to you, and that's the key difference here. This is an attempt by NBC and Fox to go to the people. Whether it's sufficient or not for the people, the people will tell them."

NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker said the new site also will sell shows and movies much like Apple's iTunes site.

The companies are forming a new company, based in New York and Los Angeles, to run the site. Until a permanent management team can be assembled, NBC Universal Chief Digital Officer George Kliavkoff will oversee it. Advertisers they say are lined up include General Motors, Cisco Systems, Cadbury Schweppes and Intel.

And the deals with Web portals AOL, MSN, Yahoo and News Corp.'s MySpace will share ad revenue for videos that run on their sites.

Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban said in an e-mail the new venture was "a very smart move" for participants. One reason, he said, was "it forces Google to either include video and index these sites, driving lots of traffic to it, or pushes Google out of the video search biz."

Which may be one of the reasons YouTube might want to make friends with this new venture rather than fight it, much like the networks are hoping to turn this would-be threat into something that makes money for them, rather than costs them cash.

"Traditional media companies have significant advantages relative to their online competitors in the form of multiple touch points with consumers, vast content libraries and expertise in content creation," Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen reported.

"We view this announcement as a natural step toward claiming a larger piece of the online advertising market. ... As a potential one-stop shop, the site could be an attractive proposition for consumers and advertisers."

The key, said Jarvis, is to be as open and available as possible and reach the audience wherever and however the media companies can find it.

"We are where we are," he said. "You can't make me move just because you have some TV clips. I'm not going to move my blog to AOL just because there are some clips there. That's ludicrous. I have my blog. I have my space, lower case. Come to me."

WHERE'S WEIR: Bill Weir, the former WGN-Ch. 9 morning star who has flourished as weekend co-host of ABC News' "Good Morning America," has snared a major assignment that will take him around the world for "World News with Charles Gibson."

Weir's "Key to the World" reports will air on the first four Mondays of next month in conjunction with the ABC newscast having a single sponsor and limited commercial interruptions on those nights, an experimental deal negotiated by Carat USA that the network says will add approximately five minutes of editorial content back into the half-hour program.

"On any given night the news of the day dominates much of 'World News,' " Jon Banner, "World News" executive producer, said in a statement.

"This additional time provides a unique opportunity on two fronts -- to open a window to parts of the world our audience may not know much about and to cover more of the day's news."

Weir's first "Key" report, on April 2, will be from Kiribati, a nation of 33 islands slowly disappearing into the Pacific Ocean, apparently because of global warming, a story he'll continue later that evening on "Nightline."

A week later Weir will report from Zambia on what's being done in Africa to curtail the high mortality rate for mothers and children associated with childbirth.

Drugstore chain CVS has signed on as sole advertiser for "World News" on April 23, the fourth Monday. Sponsorship of the first three nights has yet to be announced.

philrosenthal@tribune.com

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Copyright (c) 2007, Chicago Tribune

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