NBC have canceled their YouTube channel in preparation for the launch of their own video site, Hulu.com.  Experts fear that the loss of official support could delay the arrival of new episodes of The Office on YouTube by up to a minute.

NBC haven’t been very consistent with their YouTube dealings, alternately impressed, terrified or angry – much like a horse drawing a cart seeing the first automobile (and yes, the obsolete imagery is on purpose). 

There was the usual rounds of legal action, attempting to prevent the march of technology with complaints and pieces of paper.  Then there was an uneasy partnership, with NBC running an official YouTube channel with exclusive content.  And now NBC have declared their taking their ball and going home, home being the soon-to-launch Hulu.com, as reported by Valleywag.

NBC seem to be under the illusion that the viewers will leave their usual sites and follow their glorious network executive masters wherever they may go.  This looks less likely when you consider: why would NBC want their own channel?  Because as part of YouTube they were simply another user, if a preferred one, and just didn’t have the level of site control you need if you want to jam advertising into, around and throughout every single thing you watch.

People love watching what they want, when they want.  They love having entire series at their fingertips.  And most of all, they love being able to get through a whole four minutes without having commercials jammed into their eyeballs.  If they find that the official source is deluded enough to try and hold an internet audience prisoner like with the TV, they’ll wait the extra five minutes for someone to chop out all the rubbish and host it somewhere else.

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Entry was posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 10:41 pm under Online video, YouTube.

Read more entries by Luke McKinney.
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