Google-YouTube Content Partnerships Gaining Traction
The Guardian’s recent reports on talks between Simon Fuller (creator of Pop Idol and the Spice Girls and manager to David Beckham) and Google on a project set to “change television in much the way iTunes changed the way music is disseminated” has sparked considerable debate across the blogosphere.
Well, about time, I say.
YouTube has been quietly acquiring professional TV content in the UK with 9.4 million UK YouTube users now able to watch clips from terrestrial TV shows like The X-Factor UK and The Album Chart Show alongside BBC favourites like ‘Have I Got News For You’ and Dragons’ Den.
A recent report by web statistics firm, Nielsen Online, revealed that YouTube users in the UK spent nearly half a billion minutes on the site between September 2006 and September 2007, five times the time spent on the websites of the UK’s main 3 terrestrial broadcasters (BBC, ITV and Channel 4) combined. See our earlier coverage on the Nielsen Online report.
This incredible statistic will not be lost on Simon Fuller, creator of the Pop Idol/American Idol series, the most successful TV franchise in the world.
The scale on offer in partnership with Google-YouTube instantly delivers many times the reach available via individually brokered traditional content licensing partnerships with terrestrial TV broadcasters across the globe. It could easily give the hugely successful American Idol series a run for its money in terms of viewing figures.
Many bloggers and media analysts are squelching the Guardian reports as rumours.
I counter that there is probably more truth to it than fiction.
As Mathew Ingram postulates, Google and Fuller may well be planning on launching a YouTube channel for a reality music TV show based on the Pop Idol/American Idol series but designed specifically for the YouTube community.
Granted, not a revolutionary idea for web TV but if it is anything as ambitious as the American Idol series, it will be a significant new development in made-for-web programming.
Regular readers to this site are aware that Real Fresh TV has spent the last six months working with T-Mobile UK to develop a multi-platform digital distribution platform for distributing its branded music TV show, Transmission with T-Mobile online, liaising with the content acquisition teams at YouTube, Bebo, Brightcove, Azureus and Veoh in the process.
The ‘Google-Fuller rumours’ further confirm that there is considerable interest in large scale TV distribution on the web.
I for one am looking forwarding to hearing the rumours substantiated.
Are you? Do you think there’s more to the story than meets the eye?
Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Image Credit: TIME
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