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In Levy's "In the Plex", he writes about Google's original idea getting into video- They wanted to lay down with the content industry in much the same way that
by e1ven 15y ago
In Levy's "In the Plex", he writes about Google's original idea getting into video- They wanted to lay down with the content industry in much the same way that Hulu is now. Have all syndicated content, ads, the works.
They tried it with Google Video, and had a hard time signing the deals, and getting things done. Youtube was kicking their ass. So they bought Youtube, and it's continued to explode.
In their hearts, I have to believe that Google still wants to make that work. They've flirted with this a few times; Startrek/etc are on Youtube, and Google Video still has premium content.
Adding Hulu into the mix would give them the content/partner deals to run 1st-run, major studio content on their platform.
They could segment; Leave Youtube for viral/crowd/user videos, and Hulu for more "professional" videos.
Google Video, and Google.com would shows results from both when you video search.
It'd be brilliant.
Edit- Clarified wording.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- e1ven 15y agoSorry, I was writing badly. I've edited above for clarity.
- gte910h 15y agoThe issue is: Whenever you do a buy like this, all the customers of the service get to jump ship if they want to. So you don't necessarily get the network contracts by buying them.
- wtracy 15y agoDepends on what contracts they've signed, what their termination clauses are, and when they expire. Most likely, the networks do have contracts such that they can jump ship at will.
- gte910h 15y agoI'm guessing it's not "at will" with no penalty but "in the event of ownership changes, non-payment, or with X noticed for the payment of Y liquidated damages', with Y being really large (and you can tell from the announcements that have come out of hulu the contracts have terms).
- JonnieCache 15y agoChannels Four and Five, two of the largest terrestrial TV channels here in the UK have been making their shows available through youtube for some time now. So in some territories it is working for them.