Google Helps YouTube Competitor: CBS EyeLab
CBS creates EyeLab to woo Web surfers, AWAY FROM YOUTUBE!
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? CBS is flattering YouTube, big time!
CBS has long been Google’s greatest broadcast network supporter of its YouTube no need to pay for the use of copyright video content of others. Just seven days after acquiring YouTube, Google released a joint announcement with CBS asserting their “belief” that “YouTube has brought a significant new audience of viewers to CBS shows,” on CBS.
Quincy Smith, President CBS Interactive, underscored how “established media players” must “build bridges rather than construct walls”:
YouTube users are clearly being entertained by the CBS programming they’re watching as evidenced by the sheer number of video views. Professional content seeds YouTube and allows an open dialogue with a new set of viewers. We believe this inflection point is the precursor to many exciting developments.
For its part, YouTube took credit for “bringing new viewers to CBS broadcasts,” even though acknowledging “the success of CBS shows on YouTube is not the sole cause of the rise in CBS television ratings.”
Now, CBS has its own YouTube competing “EyeLab”:
An editing studio for creating CBS-based promotional content across CBS interactive platforms.
This next generation studio will be dedicated to creating thousands of original short-form clips that will enable users to easily engage with and sample video tied to CBS’ wide range of content.
George Schweitzer, president of CBS Marketing:
Clips about CSI or something from how a director shoots a scene in the show NUMB3RS, these are all things that link back to our shows.
For example, an EyeLab clip-culture, snack-sized montage of high-five scenes from “How I Met Your Mother” set to Strauss’s “The Blue Danube” waltz.
The ultimate YouTube-CBS irony? Former Google ad sales exec Patrick Keane is pushing the new CBS YouTube inspired promos, in his new role as Chief Marketing Officer, CBS Interactive. EyeLab can’t feed the CBS platform “too much content” Keane enthuses.
While on the Google team, though, Keane preached the value of the YouTube platform in building a TV network business.
Et tu, Keane?
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