Just a little over a month after a partnership was announced that puts CBS content on YouTube legally, CBS Interactive President Quincy Smith is beside himself with praise for their new partner. In a press release today, YouTube says that CBS content has been viewed 29.2 million times since October 18, which is an average of 857,000 views per day. Here’s an example of a clip.
Smith says:
“Above all the other good news, what’s most exciting here is the extent to which CBS is learning about its audience as never before,” said Quincy Smith, President, CBS Interactive. “YouTube users are clearly being entertained by the CBS programming they’re watching as evidenced by the sheer number of video views. Professional content seeds YouTube and allows an open dialogue between established media players and a new set of viewers. We believe this inflection point is the precursor to many exciting developments as we continue to build bridges rather than construct walls.”
The two companies are also linking the YouTube deal to an increase in television rating for many CBS shows as well:
Ratings for the network’s late night programs, in particular, have shown notable increases. CBS’s “Late Show with David Letterman” has added 200,000 (+5%) new viewers while “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” is up 100,000 viewers (+7%) since the YouTube postings started. Although the success of these shows on YouTube is not the sole cause of the rise in television ratings, both companies believe that YouTube has brought a significant new audience of viewers to each broadcast.
The stats are good (about 1% of total YouTube video views), and if CBS really feels that there is a connection between the deal and television ratings, then it is certainly bodes well for YouTube. Maybe we’ll see the Daily Show back up on YouTube sometime soon.
It’s clear, though, that all of these press releases and lawsuits are chess pieces in a huge behind the scenes battle going on right now: Content owners are trying to figure out what to do and how to do it before offline television dies. YouTube, in the meantime, divides and conquers.
From what we hear, the content owners still on the sidelines are trying to create their own jointly-owned YouTube clone and license their content into it (thereby securing 100% of ad revenues). Massive litigation against YouTube would follow by these same players. But squabbling and general paralysis has stopped the discussions from moving forward.
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We gave up TV this summer and were happy to watch our few favorite shows on the web, both CBS and ABC have done an excellent job. I hope we see more TV shows on the web. I was bummed that CBS did not show the Amazing race and I felt they lost a customer by excluding the web audience, but luckily ABC’s Lost gave us something to watch.
Second Choice for Title
CBS making ‘YouTube Climax’
That is nothing. Miniclip does 100 million game plays on single game content.
Like I said, this is the new way for media. Rather than shout infringement, these guys should be thinking “free promotion!”
“It’s clear, though, that all of these press releases and lawsuits are chess pieces in a huge behind the scenes battle going on right now”
I couldn’t agree more. This “puff piece” press release is a bit contrived and, in my opinion, and was probably done at the request (behest) of YouTube. It’s a co-marketing agreement at work here. Otherwise, why would one brand heap praise upon another. Also, remember CBS has a equity stake in GooTube, so it is in their interest to see it succeed.
The big day is Dec.4th when Tur’s motion for summary adjudication on YouTube’s Safe Harbour defense, i.e. if YouTube will be granted protection under the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions by the courts. Once that ruling is made - one way or another - we’ll have clearer visibility with regards to the copyright issue.
Michael, I took the data from the CBS press release (which is for Nov. 17) and compared to my own data for Nov. 21 and found some interesting tidbits. For example, the K-Fed/Britney Sex Tape bit on Craig Ferguson must have gotten around 1,000,000 views in the four days since CBS’s Top 15 was calculated.
In those four days, 8 new shows made the Top 15 (if the CBS report is correct).
Check out the full analysis on my blog:
http://red66.com/blog/2006/11/.....ube-stats/
Best,
Carlos Granier-Phelps.
Just a note to add - since Google has mentioned plans to pay content owners based on the amount of views their video generates, it’s not unthinkable that in the future we might see a lot more videos on Youtube and GoogleVideo. Not only are they not losing money, they could make a ton of it.
I guess the relationship doesn’t extend to apologies from comedians.
http://youtube.com/index?&.....EIXXEJdS4=
I hope CBS keeps hosting content on their own servers, because the stuff on YouTube frankly looks like ass.
Watched Survivor on CBS’s website the other night and the quality was great, youtube’s just a nasty viewing experience.
YouTube gets plugged about 10x a day on CBS and XM Satellite radio via the Opie and Anthony Show.
“Content owners are trying to figure out what to do and how to do it before offline television dies. YouTube, in the meantime, divides and conquers.”
I don’t think “offline television” is going away any time too soon. The VCR didn’t kill TV or movies despite dire warnings from the MPAA and so on in the early 80’s, and until (unless?) TV and the internet somehow merge into one set-top box such that users can’t tell the difference between the two, I don’t see either going away. Each appeal to different groups/markets.
Thank you for understanding that offline television is dying, and that there are huge shifts taking place in media, entertainment, etc. that extend beyond “social networking”.
I am glad you get the big picture.
CBS has succeded where NBC failed when they pulled all of there SNL clips from YouTube early on. They pulled “Lazy Sunday” after it had been viewed by a ton of people on the site. It was the one video that actually brought SNL back and they stopped more people from seeing it. Dumb.
I have always felt that a low-level of pirated content is good for the copyright holders for this very reason… Trading MP3’s exposes more people to your music, illegal versions of warcraft made the online gameplay more fun for everyone, and the ease of getting windows CDs is one of the reasons it has become so ubiquitous. The fact is, any product or service has a certain level of utility for the consumer, and it’s variable by person. For some people, buying a CD will never be worth the money… So what are you really losing by giving away music for free to that person? He’ll listen to it, talk about it, do the marketing leg work for you. It’s not really that different from a coupon. It’s descriminatory, and it’s intended to be that way. I have purchased games with rock solid piracy-protection and the online gaming was awful because there were so few people online at any given time. Obviously there are limits… but at least now it looks like some companies are starting to understand how the internet has changed the rules. Good for CBS.
I can’t imagine anything more likely to fail than the notion of television networks joint venturing to compete in the online video world! Time to double down on the bet that new entrants, not old, will define what the new media company model.
^ lol. agreed.
Mainstream broadcast providers have to move quickly to understand the new platform because YouTube has proven that users want new content not content made for TV but content made for the net. What’s great is new players are emerging like Facebook, video players like PodTech who are the next Youtubes of the world.
^ well but also you need to factor in that user activity will change as people become more familiar and comfortable with video via the web. last year, you got the user for 2 to 3 minutes, max. their threshold is increasing, so now they’re maybe willing to watch 10 minutes. what you rarely see anybody talk about is the fact that everybody’s moving to IP channel for distribution and tvs are adapting for it - so what somebody will do on their PC with video will significantly change as this migration comes closer to completion.
in the future, we’re not even going to talk about devices - it’ll all work on everything and you get to choose it. i think it’s not about focusing on what’s happening this minute with users and video and the internet, but what’s coming next.
VCMike — television networks have lots of money and existing relationships with the people who bring the content into your house — whether it’s through the cable or wireless signals from a satellite. The difference between TV and Internet is semantics, it’s all signals passing through wires. In some ways, digital cable is youtube 2.0 … It has hundreds of channels with excellent quality. So it doesn’t have the stacks of illegal content… who cares, if Universal music and everyone else make deals with Youtube, they can make the same deals with the traditional providers and you can soon be searching your TV for music videos on demand… In fact, I already have that on my media center PC. Beneath all the hype, Youtube provides little more value then a “medium” for finding stuff. They did a great job building that medium, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s so simple to replace. The content owners hold all the cards, and today the television networks are big players in that regard. Once they start distributing their TV show archives over your TV, who needs Youtube.
This is good news for http://www.veetube.com
I said CBS would benefit from Google’s Youtube acquisition in my roundup at my blog.
That chick fight gave me so much adrenaline.
CBS is definitely making the right move. The old-school thinking was to protect with an iron fist. This just doesn’t work. If CBS wants me to watch their shows and watch their advertisements, give me something that compels me to even consider looking at advertising. Good job to Quincy Smith at CBS
All your CBS ads are belong to us.
I’ve been enjoying watching offline television media become online television media and have been utilizing some of the services such as Movielink for several years now. I continue to look forward to the future developments, and hopefully to the day when television channels will no longer be restricted by your ability to get good reception, but by the strength of your internet connection.
The number of views that CBS claims to be getting are totally fake. One of their video clips went from 69,000 views to 80,000 views in about one half hour. It’s pretty easy to fake views, just run multiple computers with multiple browsers open and set the browsers to automatically refresh the page… and bingo, it counts as a view. They have to fake the views to keep the clip in the “most viewed” category when nothing could be further from the truth. I posted to one of their fake “most viewed” videos and the post was deleted before it was ever shown…
so what somebody will do on their PC with video will significantly change as this migration comes closer to completion
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