NBC STILL Playing YouTube Games with Google: Ad-Tech Report
NBC has a hate-love-hate relationship with YouTube, I noted to NBC Universal Senior VP, Digital Distribution, Ron Lamprecht, at the Ad-Tech conference underway in New York City. Google’s Director of TV Ads, Michael Steib, was at his side.
The two execs shared a stage for a panel entitled “Television 3.0,” moderated by Greg Baumann, Editor, Television Week.
During the Q & A, I underscored the irony of a Television Week editor opening a panel on the future of television by showing a “clip” about TV, running on YouTube! I also asked Lamprecht what NBC intends to do about the rampant unauthorized posting of copyright NBC materials at YouTube.
My Question: NBC has deleted its YouTube channel while semi-launching its would be YouTube killer. NBC content nevertheless continues to boom at YouTube. What will NBC do about the ongoing copyright infringement?
1) Join in the Google Video ID program OR
2) Join in Viacom’s billion dollar YouTube lawsuit?
Lamprecht’s answer: We launched Hulu.com. We continue to talk with Google, Michael and I just spoke before the panel (Google’s TV Ads point man concurred).
I saw, and heard over the open mikes, the two Google and NBC execs joking together as well, before the discussion got underway. During the panel, NBC’s digital distribution point man even gave Google the thumbs up, underscoring how the tehchnology of the company that wants to control all the world’s advertising, even the broadcast kind, will be indispensable to television advertisers going forward. Robert Leverone, VP Television, Dow Jones, chimed in that partnering is key.
The NBC-Google co-panelist love fest today at Ad-Tech contrasts starkly with the NBC-Google almost showdown I witnessed at the OMMA conference in NYC in September.
As I recount in NBC’s Defense Against YouTube IP Abuse? Carrot, NOT Stick: OMMA Report George Kliavkoff, Chief Digital Officer for NBC Universal, twice lobbed veiled, but pointed, jabs at Google for its scant concern for protecting the rights of content creators at its YouTube juggernaut. HE was sharing the stage with Google’s Director of Media Platforms, sitting side-by-side with Eileen Naughton.
During the OMMA Q & A, I asked Kliavkoff: “You seem to have twice indicated NBC’s unhappiness with Google’s DMCA business model. Isn’t it time for NBC to give Viacom some real support by also suing YouTube for copyright infringement?”
Kliavkoff responded that NBC belives in IP “carrots, not sticks.”
Just weeks later, NBC pulled its YouTube channel. Lamprecht didn’t say today if THAT (anti) YouTube move was the carrot, or the stick, talking!
MORE: Tom Curley AP Crusade: Google AdSense Lawsuit Near? Thanks to Attributor and Hulu.com Debuts: Worth the Wait and NBC on Why Hulu.com IS a YouTube Killer: OMMA Report
PLUS: Google To World: Give YouTube Your Videos, NOW! and NBC Still Booming on YouTube: Google Lawsuit Next? and OMMA Advertising Cat Fight? Google’s Media Chief Gets Defensive