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YouTube Pays for Content: Is this the Start of the Death of TV?

Here is a blog entry from ZDnet about YouTube’s plans to paying for User Generated Content as revealed by its CEO Chad Hurley during the World Economic Forum.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, YouTube CEO Chad Hurley has revealed that the company plans to financially compensate users who produce and upload their content. Other sites such as Revver and Brightcove have long offered a revenue-share to content creators, where YouTube has sought to only do deals with old media, in an attempt to avoid litigation over copyright infringement.

This is particularly interesting in the light of YouTube and Rewer’s deal with Verizon Wireless to distribute YouTube content for a fee. When this comes into full force this will definitely have a significant impact on how people get their multimedia content (particular videos). For now TV is still very pervasive and will still dominate the video scene. However, as the number of Internet users increase, the ability to choose just the shows I want to watch will be a compelling reason to switch to an online video portal like YouTube. However, the death of TV will only accelerate when YouTube’s (or its clones’) videos will be legally distributed for free sponsored by advertising (or some other) revenue.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2007 at 12:01 am and is filed under Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “YouTube Pays for Content: Is this the Start of the Death of TV?”

  1. wyuwp Says:
    January 28th, 2007 at 10:29 pm

    Here is another interesting article on Why subscriptions and not the current pay-per-view model makes sense. It is pretty clear that paying $0.0014 per show on a cable TV subscription is more cost effective than $0.12 per show on the “new” model.

    Even more recently, content providers have been pushing service providers (and indeed, even governments) to abandon the analog airwaves and start broadcasting solely digital signals. Why? Is it because digital looks better? No. Anyone with a good television set can see that most DVD videos show compression artifacting during certain types of scenes, while analog (VHS) recordings do not. Is it because digital broadcasts are more convenient for the viewer? Again, no. You have to buy a digital cable box or satellite receiver, and buy a television with digital or high-definition inputs. Is it so you can finally make use of all the neat features your new digital PVR has? Nope. In fact, that’s just about the last thing the content providers want, and by extension, the service providers.

    However, one factor for the reduction in costs is actually the advertisements. Advertisements fun a large part of the cost in a broadcast TV service. If there where a workable model for advertising on the ala carte TV show model then maybe it can make headway? So related to the post. If Google YouTube’s Ad model works this could be a start.

  2. wyuwp Says:
    January 28th, 2007 at 10:32 pm

    And Bill Gates annouced in Davos that The Internet will revolutionize TV in 5 years.

    The rise of high-speed Internet and the popularity of video sites like Google Inc.’s YouTube has already led to a worldwide decline in the number hours spent by young people in front of a TV set.

    In the years ahead, more and more viewers will hanker after the flexibility offered by online video and abandon conventional broadcast television, with its fixed program slots and advertisements that interrupt shows, Gates said.

    It’s main selling point more freedom. But, in order to work, a sustainable commercial model needs to be put in place.

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