YouTube adds full-length television shows
By Michael W. Jones
At a time when much of the television news revolves around the analog to digital change and reality television hijinks, YouTube has made some news of its own. The Google-owned video Web site has moved to put full-length television shows on its site for the first time.
Historically, YouTube has hosted a bewildering and attractive variety of video clips, the vast majority of which have been less than ten minutes in length. YouTube announced on Friday that it had finalized a deal with CBS to offer shows such as Star Trek, MacGyver, Beverly Hills 90210, and The Young and the Restless.
In some ways this new offering is more of a change in length and legality than an abrupt left turn. There have been small segments of television shows on YouTube almost since the beginning, but these also adhered more or less to the ten-minute time limit and were not sanctioned by the owners of the content. Often, such segments were removed after the copyright owner complained about their inclusion on the site. That will no longer be the case, at least for the content covered by the deal with CBS.
YouTube also said that it was in negotiation with other providers of lengthier content, specifically mentioning other television networks. This announcement follows on the heels of the introduction of their TheaterView product, which is aimed at the provision of a higher quality online viewing experience. It is not too far a stretch of the imagination to assume that these two new services are somehow related.
The new services also put YouTube head to head with Hulu, competing directly for the full-length television show viewer. Hulu currently has more of this sort of content than YouTube, but YouTube has the lion’s share of the Web video audience. It is estimated that YouTube has 100 times the viewers that Hulu has. With viewership being the key number in this marketplace, and with a business plan that now includes full-length television content, YouTube (and Google) are positioned to make a serious run at their competition.
Related:
Entry was posted
on Sunday, October 12th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
under 
Print This Post
Read more entries by Michael W. Jones.
Stumble It!
October 13th, 2008
How about a link?
October 13th, 2008
The big question is if will stream outsite the USA. If not, well, torrents will.
October 13th, 2008
There is no sign of such a service or announcement on Youtube, so not sure WHEN this supposedly will occur. A time hint and a link would be nice here.
October 13th, 2008
Morbo:
Here’s one…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1XZHrpveCI&feature=PlayList&p=105BA648A7E0DE18&index=1
And there is a link on the right for more CBS content. :)
October 13th, 2008
The real question is, what happens if Google owns all video (though they’ve never touched a video camera) and owns all text (though they’ve never picked up a pen)?
Put that in your pipe and go to BetterStream.com where users own their own work.
October 13th, 2008
Very good move from youtube.
It appears to me that they seem to notice that people want their favorite shows from TV very badly.
October 13th, 2008
In reply to Spectreman’s post about streaming outside the US, I’m in Australia, and I can’t even view the video linked to by Michael W. Jones. It says it’s not available in my country. Congratulations, content providers, you’ve just fucked yourselves over in the rest of the world AGAIN! =D
Just over a year ago, and this is the cause of the new gimmick in Australian television where they claim shows are “streamed directly from the US” or “fast tracked”, a study showed that Australia, with our comparatively puny population of 20 million, was responsible for more than 30% of the world’s television and movie piracy. The cause was quickly discovered to be that we were at least a year behind on everything. I don’t see how American television networks excluding other countries is going to help them at all. Piracy is just a much better option - I’d certainly rather download Star Trek than stream it.
October 13th, 2008
Michael Vaugn -
I absolutely agree that the situation is a little bizarre. I knew there were difficulties, but did not know that it was this large a problem. Is anyone else unable to access this YouTube page?
October 13th, 2008
tubular -
Some of the content is already up. See the link in a previous comment..
October 14th, 2008
I can’t access it either, from Australia:
“This video is not available in your country.”
October 14th, 2008
Me as well. The link is not available in Japan.
October 14th, 2008
I wonder if the only rights that YouTube wanted, and thus the only ones that they bought, were U.S rights? Or, conversely, if that was all that CBS was willing to sell? Or, on the gripping hand, whether CBS has sold foreign rights to other parties and thus cannot grant those rights to YouTube?
One had to wonder….
October 15th, 2008
“This video is not available in your country.” SUCKS
October 16th, 2008
Well, we all know the Americans are only interested in themselves, not the rest of the world.
Youtube is useless if you live anywhere other than USA!!